Monthly Archives: April 2008

A Veritable Potpourri!

by bigliberty

So I’m going to post some quick hits and foreshadow a few upcoming posts today.

1. If you haven’t already, please go to the wonderful blog “She Dances on the Sand” by Rioiriri and check out her latest post: I am a person, not an epidemic. It’s a great read for both Size Acceptance activists and freedom-lovers. She makes the great point that, all things considered, the obesity epi-panic isn’t about some lingering cloud of doom but rather real people, with real bodies, being told their bodies must change “for their own good, and for the good of the people.” Of course, we know that the obesity epi-panic will accomplish neither of those goals, already ruining or decreasing the quality of many lives, and threatening to throw a whole generation into a fat-hating orgy of unhealthy relationships with food and their bodies.

2. I’ve been reading George Orwell’s terrific essay, “Notes on Nationalism.” It’s definitely going to go on this week’s reading list (which I’ll post every Friday, starting this week, and link to from the top tabs via a new page). Orwell makes the masterful argument that nationalism isn’t just extreme patriotism for one’s country or military, but rather it has much deeper sociological roots. He claims the nationalist is the individual who, at the cost of rational objectivism, will do anything to see his “team” one-up the other “team.” In other words, a person who hates fat people will ignore every rigor of science thrust in his direction, every bit of rigorous and anecdotal evidence, &etc in order to promulgate his message of hate. Nationalists live in a world of fantasy, where their “team” must win against the other “team,” regardless of truth, the dictates of reality, and what have you.

3. I’ve been simmering about one particular Obesity Myth that seems not to have been addressed to my satisfaction: the myth of the all powerful Thin Child who shall never get sick and remain youthful forever. Not sure what I mean? It’s this: fat children are artificially created by their parents/culture/school/environment/whathaveyou, and since fat is correlated with certain diseases more strongly correlated to genetics and increasing age, if the fat is banished from a child that child shall grow up into a non-fat adult who will defy his/her genetics and never get age-related diseases.

I call this Obesity Myth: The Fountain of Youths (plural is intentional ;) )

At any rate, I really would like to debunk it (though of course, it has many flaws on its face). In particular, I’d like to satirize the progression of the Thinnizing of a group of fat children in order to make them part of this anointed, forever-young generation. I’d like to show that if we truly went “all the way” in making these kids thin, to what lengths we’d endeavor, and the associated consequences like stunted height, stunted mental development, exposure to various other maladies undreamed of by the Thinner is the Winner medical establishment, and so forth.

Some more discussion on these topics is coming soon. Again, for all readers, if you’re interested in joining the Fat Liberation feed or displaying the feed on your site (a great way to keep up with non-Fatosphere bloggers like myself, AnnieMcPhee, limor, and others), please visit the tab at the top of this blog, or email me at big dot liberty at gmail dot com

Comparing Oppressions — a follow-up

by bigliberty

So this is a follow-up post to my last post, which linked to the thread on my “home” messageboard ranting about fat people using the power carts at Wal-Mart.

A woman who is tentatively FA messaged me through the board about the thread. I didn’t include her name for privacy reasons.

I’m on your side, I really am.

However, you’re not helping your case with hyperbole.

There are no death camps for the obese. No one is tattooing you and shoving you into a gas chamber.

I lost family in the camps. The comparison doesn’t come close.

You might try using another example of discrimination rather than that.

Of course, you’ve already characterized all Obama supporteers as brain-dead idiots, so take this as you will.

Good luck with your cause.

And my response:

Hi [name deleted],

You’ve mischaracterized what I’ve said, and also made false assumptions. I’ve already explained that we’re not going through a Holocaust, and that what is happening now is not what was happening then. I could have also made the case (which can be shown, independent of charged emotions) that all oppressed groups go through very similar initial characterizations — like they are lazy, stupid, immoral, and what have you. Different groups meet different answers to those characterizations, like you noted (fat people aren’t in concentration camps, and did not ever have to undergo slavery and its long aftermath, or any kind of genocide).

However, to unequivocally believe that we’re not supposed to *learn* lessons from history and past forms of discrimination, and that unfair groupings are no longer happening and that horrible events like slavery, the Holocaust, genocide, physical mutilation, and so forth *can’t* ever happen again, or aren’t currently happening to some groups in some parts of the world, is fallacious.

In fact, a recent _60 Minutes_ piece aired the wonders of gastric bypass surgery, which is the mutilation of the stomach organ in order to, in most cases, force a state of chronic bulimia. The reporting was shoddy (they only looked at 6 people an average of 7 months after the study, still well within the weight-loss “Honeymoon” period of the surgery), and they downplayed the mortality rate making it far lower than in reality, and didn’t mention the horrible side-effects that the majority of patients experience which result in a markedly lower quality of life and end up, in about one-third of the cases, in much earlier death than if they’d just remained fat.

Sanctioned mutilation of an organ to attain unhealthy thinness, trumpeted by a normally serious show like _60 Minutes_ — is that *not* extremely chilling and forboding? It’s not genocide, it’s not murder (though there are arguments to this effect), but it’s using scare tactics and misinformation to make people who are socially unacceptable into people who are socially acceptable, and ruining their lives in the process. And while gastric bypass used to be reserved for only the very morbidly obese (400, 500+ lbs), it is increasingly used on lower and lower weights, with a surgeon in the UK actually proposing it for barely obese people and children as young as 10! A mother in the US took her teenage daughter to New Mexico to get the surgery, since the girl was “unpopular” at school and their doctors had scared them into thinking the then-healthy girl would soon get ill and die of her fatness. I consider this child abuse, yet I think many people would consider this mother as going to the extremes to do the best for her child, in the current fat-fearing, fat-hating environment.

So no, fat people aren’t undergoing gas chambers and genocide, *and I never said that.* What I said is that there is a common pattern of alienation imposed upon undesirable social groups, and fat people were merely having this same pattern imposed upon them. I’m sorry you took offense, but you did not interpret my comparison and later qualifications correctly.

As for Obama-supporters, I never said they were brain-dead idiots, either. I also said in another post a while back that I’m sure there were many people who were voting for him based on concrete issues. I was simply repeating what was told to me by a coworker—when pressed, he didn’t have any issues to present with which he agreed, and he is the one who said, “He’s got a certain Messianic quality that I think appeals to people.” And I agree; and that’s not a necessarily bad thing, but whenever you have people blindly following ANY political leader, it is a cause for concern. I’m certain there are people out there who are blindly following Clinton and McCain, too.

Thanks for the message, and I hope I’ve cleared a few things up.

Fat hate speech on my “home” messageboard

by bigliberty

From the Star Trek message board I frequent, entitled: “Rant: Fat people and Wal-Mart power cars”:

Time to vent.

This might not mean much to the vast majority here, but it’s become a steady source of annoyance for me. As you may know, I’m handicapped and I can’t walk under my own power. I use canes or a power/manual wheelchair to get around.

When I go to Wal Mart with my mother or alone, I use their “mart carts”, because it’s convenient. Just park and go in and get one, y’know? The sign says “For our valued customers who’d like a lift,” so it makes it easy to get in and get out without dealing with my own wheelchair, which I can’t lift and get out on my own.

Unless of course none are available. Which is becoming increasingly the case of late.

At any given Wal Mart, there are maybe 12 of the power carts. At mine, because no one takes care of them, the majority sit uselessly with “out of order” tags slapped on them. The remaining 4 or 5 are somewhere in the store usually, being used by people who DON’T NEED THEM. Obese people who can walk perfectly fine from their cars to the store without using canes. Who walk perfectly fine in their own homes without power chairs or scooters. Yet they take the “mart carts” away from those who are legitimately disabled, like me, who have more of a need for them. And it is really starting to piss me off.

A few days ago, for instance, I’m standing in the entrance to Wal Mart looking in disbelief as TWO carts are being used by two overweight women. They had no canes. They didn’t have tubes in their noses, so I assumed they had no difficulty breathing. What were they doing? They were in line at the McDonalds. And they had nothing in their baskets so they likely had just arrived.

I was livid. I actually went over and asked them if I could use a cart, as the rest were “out of order.” One lady graciously gave it up, while the other said “Well, I have a heart condition.”

Yeah, I bet she did. And the hamburger she was ordering probably did it a world of good, too.

I just don’t understand it. There should be some sort of sign that says “Please give priority to the handicapped,” or something, but even that probably won’t do any good. It’s always the same thing: the only people that seemingly use the carts when I’m in Wal Mart are fat people. And they give me looks. Excuse me? Like they can’t see the TWO CANES in the basket that suggest that I can’t walk.

Like they’re saying, “You’re skinny. What are you doing in one of these?” *sigh* I just don’t know. It pisses me off. And talking to the management does no good. I’ve tried.

Ugh!

Gaaaaarrrghghghg!

Quick hit: Giving short kids growth hormones to make them taller

by bigliberty

I consider this article very important because it discusses another aspect of “body engineering” children in order to fit into societally acceptable norms—making short children, who are often teased for their shortness–rather than addressing the root problem of societal body discrimination.

The last quote is the all-important caveat.

http://www.med.umich.edu/1libr/yourchild/commentary/index.htm

Until research findings such as these were available, it was easy to assume that anything that could make the shorter person taller would be desirable, because of commonly accepted negative stereotypes associated with short stature and predictable experiences of teasing and juvenilization at younger ages,. In fact, in 2003, the FDA approved growth hormone (GH) to promote accelerated growth and adult height in the shortest 1.2% of children and adolescents who do not have any detectable medical problems. GH had previously been approved for treating youths with GH deficiency; in this case, medication was substituting for a hormone that these children’s bodies were not producing on their own. GH was then given to children with other medical conditions; for example, Prader-Willi in which metabolic benefits from treatment have been reported.

And at the end of the article:

My concern over the FDA approval of GH for healthy, short children is that medical treatment may send the wrong message. You possibly communicate to the child that something is wrong—so wrong that it justifies daily injections for years. Currently, little to no consideration is given to the potential psychological harm that treatment could inflict on the child we seek to help. And by “treating” short stature in healthy children, medicine is reinforcing the social forces that maintain negative stereotypes about short people. (5) There will always be individuals below any cutoff adopted to set the limit between “normal” from “abnormal” height. Therefore, even if the individual with short stature were to receive psychosocial benefit from GH (a benefit that has not been demonstrated), it is only because others remain shorter.

Over time, more and more treatments will blur the line between what we consider medically necessary versus enhancement. In deciding how to use these treatments, we need to focus on evidence, like patient-reported quality of life—especially when treating young people who rely on their parents and healthcare professionals to make proper decisions on their behalf.

~ David E. Sandberg, Ph.D.
April 2007

Which is the same thing as putting fat kids on diets, or on over-vigorous forced exercise regimes, or shaming them for their BMIs, etc. By “treating” fatness in healthy fat children, medicine is reinforcing the negative stereotypes about fat people.

Dealing with Life in a Fat-phobic Society

by bigliberty

This is meant to be a guide for people who are ready to become internally liberated from fat-phobia, while still living in a fat-phobic society.

1. Don’t make assumptions.

Just because someone is thin, does not mean they

a) Hate fat people,
b) Don’t know what it’s like to be fat (many of us were thin once, twice, or more times during our yo-yo dieting days),
c) Aren’t sympathetic (some are honest and informed enough to appreciate the issues),
d) Aren’t empathetic (they could have had a mom, dad, sister, best friend, etc that was fat),
e) Accept the obesity epi-panic paradigm

Just because someone is fat, does not mean they

a) Don’t hate fat people
b) Accept their fatness (“I’m a thin person in a fat person’s body”)
c) Are sympathetic to other fat people (“Ugh, I might be fat, but at least I’m not as fat as *that* disgusting person!”)
d) Are empathetic to other fat people (“I’ll working to get those pounds off, I swear!”)
e) Don’t accept the obesity epi-panic paradigm (“I’m so depressed…how did I let myself go? I’m so unhealthy. I must have no willpower.”)

2. Appeal for justice to the right authorities.

a) If your child is singled out in gym class for his/her weight, it might not be the gym teacher who is prejudiced. It could be a school policy to single out fatter children, to weigh them, calculate their BMIs, or use calipers publicly to determine their body fat percentage. Appeal to the principal, school board, state, or federal government accordingly.

b) If an ignorant news anchor makes disparaging remarks about a fat person/fat people, remember they are merely playing their roles in a fat-phobic society. Take the producer of the show to issue; bring your issues to the top of the power chain, not to the chain’s replaceable mouthpieces.

3. Realize fat issues and fat-phobia are multi-religion, multi-ethnic, all age, cross-class, multi-culture, multi-sex, cross-educational, cross-political, multi-moral, etc.

a) While statistics show certain groups are fatter, and certain groups have varying levels of fat acceptance and forms of fat-phobia, that does *not* mean any group is immune to fat-phobia, or any group should be marginalized in the War Against Fat-phobia. We’re all in this together, and we’re not going to get out of it unless we stand together, equally.

b) Fat rights are apolitical. Fat rights can be advocated by liberal, conservative, Progressive, libertarian, fascist, democrat, etc. You do not have to be a member of any one particular political movement to be a believer in fat rights, and have the ability to advocate. The assumption those of one political stripe are worthier advocates for fat rights than those of another political stripe is fallacious and divisive, and will only harm the integrity of the movement.

c) Fat-phobia is omni-political. One political group does not discriminate or hate fat people more than another. Some so-called Progressives and left liberals consider fat people to be a representation of the materialistic, consumption-obsessed dynamic they despise. Some so-called libertarians believe fat is voluntary and fat people will somehow increase the tax burden. Some so-called conservatives believe fat is synonymous with anti-Christian gluttony, and is therefore undesirable. Some fascists believe if fat people had their diets and behavior properly controlled and directed, they would no longer be fat.

4. Shed your anger.

Everyone is indignant when they witness something they believe to be an injustice. However, hasty, angry retorts will be used against you, as a reinforcement of how undignified fat is, or how defensive fat people are, or how “crazy” fat liberation is. Respond with truth in measured tones, wherever you encounter fat-phobia, whether it be on the internet, in your child’s school, on TV, in your family, at your workplace, in public, etc.

And, finally:

5. View your obstacles as opportunities.

Because of your unique experience with discrimination, both fat-based and otherwise, you are likely more informed on certain issues than some other people, who have not experienced what you have experienced. You have the power to educate others about what you’ve experienced.

However, always be careful not to marginalize other people based on their weight, demographics, and so forth, when you’re educating. We’re all individuals, with individual experiences, and should respect other people and not belittle them if they do not understand or agree with us.

Hope you all find this list useful.

“Brownies” are the enemy

by bigliberty

So I was watching TV this morning, and saw the latest Playtex commercial.

At first, I actually thought it wasn’t that bad of a commercial. The women (though airbrushed to make their skin look scary porcelain-smooth, at the very least) seemed like they weren’t your typical underwear models, and I always enjoy a break from the Victoria Secret’s ‘Typical Male Fantasy’ 18″ waist and 40″ bust.

However, imagine my disappointment when I heard the following lines (made by the only woman who wasn’t thin) :

“You know, like when the muffin, and the top, and the bra…” (obviously bringing to mind Fattie McPatented Shoulder Flab)

“Gravity is no longer my enemy. But brownies are.”

Zah???@?@!

Oh yeah, include the fattie mcfatties in your commercial, but make sure that they’re properly apologetic “good” fatties that are working towards getting into that smaller bra size! Because, yanno, who wants to think about “gravity” when you’re busy demonizing food and restricting?

PlayTex: We know youse womenz goodz. Weezah gonna connekt by bra-ing up a starvin McFatty. Now BUYZ OURZ STUF!

Am I overreacting by finding this fairly insulting?

Artificial Insemination

by bigliberty

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone knew anything about this process, the cost, the snags, etc? I’ve researched it on the web and know that it’s a comparatively cheap male infertility go-around, however, I also know that the success rates are low. Also, does anyone have any information/experience/etc about discrimination in the artificial insemination process, specifically fat discrimination?

Thanks in advance! :)

Language as a Smoke-Screen

by bigliberty

It’s long been accepted that political language is often filled with obfuscatory phraseology, meant to deceive people into believing one thing is true when, in fact, the actions behind the language imply the opposite. Vagueness in language is often employed in order to serve as a smoke-screen for deceit. For instance, take the following passage:

Plan for a Healthy America

“We now face an opportunity — and an obligation — to turn the page on the failed politics of yesterday’s health care debates… My plan begins by covering every American. If you already have health insurance, the only thing that will change for you under this plan is the amount of money you will spend on premiums. That will be less. If you are one of the 45 million Americans who don’t have health insurance, you will have it after this plan becomes law. No one will be turned away because of a preexisting condition or illness.”

— Barack Obama, Speech in Iowa City, IA, May 29, 2007

There are various forms of obfuscation employed in this speech snippet, taken from Obama’s campaign website. First, he begins stating we have an “opportunity” that is in fact an “obligation” to do such-and-such. Opportunities are not obligations: opportunities can be taken or ignored, signifying they are, in fact, optional. By beginning with the word “opportunity,” Obama makes what is in fact going to be mandatory seem optional, which is a much nicer state of things than mandatory compulsion. It is a trick to make people believe they still have freedom to choose when, in fact, choice will be taken away from them.

The next obfuscation is the phrase “to turn the page on the failed politics of yesterday’s healthcare debates.” It is a phrase characterized by opacity: what does “failed politics of yesterday’s healthcare debates” mean, anyway? Does it mean we’ve been talking about it too much? Too little? In the wrong way? When was “yesterday”? In context, one might realize he is likely speaking about Hillary Clinton’s failure to get a single-payer healthcare system in place during her husband’s presidency. So the phrase was meant to mudsling without naming names, so that Obama could engage in character-bashing without being pinned as a character-basher. Again, language has been used to deceive.

The rest of the speech is an exercise in half-truths. His plan covers every American (false: some Americans will be covering other Americans who do not currently cover themselves and fall under some income demarcation, while some Americans who choose not to be covered will be forced to cover themselves. A “plan” cannot actively ‘do’ anything). He asserts your premiums shall be less — leaving out the hidden costs of co-pays, waiting lists, lower-quality care, intrusive programs into lifestyle and diet to be employed to make sure you’re not costing the system ‘too much,’ higher prescription prices, lower financial incentive by professionals to do research, higher costs of ‘optional’ care, etc.

If you are one of the “45 million Americans” (likely an inflated, rounded-up number) who doesn’t have health insurance, you shall ‘get it’ after Obama’s plan becomes law. You shall get it, indeed—some shall be getting a large bill they before with which they chose not to be burdened, for whatever reason.

Language has long been used in this fashion, and shall likely continue to be so used. Language plays a large part in how far we allow the government to intrude into our lives — if we are made to believe we still have freedom, our civil liberties can be degraded, one by one, and no one will notice until it’s too late.

That’s why Sandy’s reporting on the degradation of the Second Amendment taking place in the lead-up to the Supreme Court hearing on the latter is so very important. Allowing the government to search and seize without a formal warrant is a dangerous precedent. It can have implications, the most frightening of which do not involve arms: the government feeling free to break and enter as long as lip service is paid to public health and welfare.

We must be vigilant. And we must understand that our civil liberties were laid down as such for well-thought-out reasons, by people with experiential and/or academic knowledge on the darker nature of government power-mongering.

“Obese”, “Fat”, and so forth

by bigliberty

Red 3 has a great post on the euphemisms that are used to “walk around” the fat person in “the room” (specifically, he referenced some well-known dating sites).

“Big,” “Heavy,” “Thick” and others are trotted out to soften the “blow” of our bodies. Overweight or Obese are suggested as polite ways to refer to us. Simply calling us fat is entirely out of the question. Fat is a bad thing, you see, so it wouldn’t be nice to call us that. So they come up with other words to use to call us fat while emphasizing how awful our physical state is.

We also have, of course, today’s breaking news that Wired.com has “defined” the Fatosphere thusly:

Fatosphere n. A blogosphere of the obese, by the obese, for the obese. Often designated “no-diet zones,” fatosphere blogs seek to counter medical claims that obesity is a health epidemic.

Many others have gone over the obvious logical fallacies in this definition (incompleteness (“..blogs seek to counter…”) one, assumption (“…by the obese, for the…”) another, etc). But I’m going to talk more about words, here.

Words are powerful. Orwell has a great essay called “The Politics of the English Language” which expose various so-called “mental vices” engaged in by many writers and orators, especially during argument. Later on, Orwell goes to explore the dangers of political doublespeak (a descriptive term coined by him in his novel, 1984). We’re familiar with words that have changing implications, and even definitions, or words that have different outcomes than their implications. For instance, “fairness” at times leads to unfair outcomes, “justice” has been fashioned into a tool of punishment for unpopular voices, and so forth.

So what kind of implications are drawn forth from the words “obese” and “fat”?

Currently, though it has not been so forever, “obese” has come to mean a medical condition of the afflicted. One is afflicted by the syndrome of obesity, and the syndrome of obesity is an affliction to be rectified, or at least ‘managed.’

Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia, begins its definition of obesity in such a manner:

Obesity is a condition in which the natural energy reserve, stored in the fatty tissue of humans and other mammals, exceeds healthy limits. It is commonly defined as a body mass index (weight divided by height squared) of 30 kg/m2 or higher.

Although obesity is an individual clinical condition, some authorities view it as a serious and growing public health problem. Some studies show that excessive body weight has been shown to predispose to various diseases, particularly cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus type 2, sleep apnea and osteoarthritis.

It follows with a bevy of unsupported claims and assertions, and cites from the three or four sources most cited in the War on Obese People (Nurse’s Study, CDC 2004 figures are two) — interestingly, the same sources that have come under the most fire for possibly (or definitely, in case of the CDC numbers) “cooking the books.”

“Fat,” however, is actually more precisely descriptive in a scientific manner. “Fat” people have a larger store of adipose tissue on their bodies compared to some baseline norm. No one can argue with that: I have more adipose tissue than my fiancee, he has more than his daughter, she has more than our cat, and so forth. “Fat people” mean people who have more fat on their bodies compared to some baseline norm, usually some idealized version of the body, defined by the culture, medical professionals, the government, or whomever is the current socially accepted authority.

And while I engage in calling myself a “fat person,” specifically because I’m defined as such by the government, with which comes the various prejudices of daily life at this point in human history, I think it’s important to realize that this term is comparative in nature, and is descriptive only when there is some baseline norm. When finally the conflict of interest so present in much modern-day obesity research becomes scientifically unacceptable or popularly proven wrong (since much of it is already proven wrong, it just isn’t yet popularly acknowledged), the idea of an “ideal” weight will become obsolete, and we’ll have nothing on which to base our comparisons.

Such as it should be: fat people are people with normal bodies, which can be sick, healthy, sedentary, active, attractive, unattractive, hygienic, unhygienic, taken care of, abused, ad infinitum.

Perhaps the “fat” as a group-term should also eventually go the way of “obese,” as another loaded word which is, ultimately, a false description. We should certainly not meet group-terminology with more group-terminology. And while we need to fight the good fight and give our fight a name (which necessitates grouping our voices), eventually we’ll need to shed the “fat” as well as the “obesity,” so to speak, should we ever be seen as equal members of the culture, just the same as everyone else.