on so many levels
Read this: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Shame. It hits all the levels. Being fat is different from being fat and black is different from being fat, black and female. You can barely move from the weight of it even if you’re physically fit, even if you can run or float. You can spend all of your time fighting what people think you are without really having a chance to figure it out for yourself.
Fat Articles
Fat is the subject of the hour. There are so many things to link to and others do a better job, because they’re deep in the folds of the obesity argument. But I want to capture these even just for myself and have reference points when the urge to diet and exercise excessively come up.
At The Atlantic Megan McArdle starts an epic battle (in blogging) with the obesity panic and what to do about it. It starts here. Old but found this link to an NPR story, Top 10 Reasons Why the BMI Is Bogus, at The Rotund.
Also at the Rotund, The Limbo, does a good job of talking about period between souring on dieting and truly being accepting being fat. I touched a little on some of these issues in my other blog, but not in terms of fat. I’m going more in depth on this in another post because it’s so fraking important.
A theory
I’ve been thinking about fat and why it has a tendency not to go away for good once someone has packed it on. (You know, other than the obvious we’re all just greedy lazy gluttons who sit around all day eating sweet, fatty, salty Doritos.)
When I read Elizabeth Kolberts article, Why Are We So Fat in the New Yorker, I was reminded once again that fat is not longer considered a symptom of disease (or even a side effect) as it once was. Every single book, author and study she mentions says it’s all about the calories we consume, not the kind and/or quality of the food we eat, or non-food factors that my have affected the American populace as a whole. Disease is a byproduct of being fat, which is caused solely by our overeating/underexercising (it might as well be a word).
But let’s say fat is a symptom or side effect, which never goes away, even when the body has healed itself of the disease that caused it. Emphasis mine, of course. The assumption is always that we now eat more calories, so that’s why we’re fat. What if we assumed that we eat more calories now because we got fat as a side effect, and we need those extra calories to maintain our higher weight.
Think about it this way: If you have breast cancer and you have mastectomy, after your treatment, the cancer, the disease is gone. But you’re not going to grow your breast back. It’s kind of that way with fat. There’s some hormonal imbalance for whatever reason (puberty, pregnancy, high sugar diet), you gain the weight. You change your diet or go on or off birth control pills or stop using hairspray, so your hormones are balanced again. But you don’t lose the weight, because it’s not important or your overall health.
Emphasis mine, again.
New Theory
I know I’m a bit late on this but this Nick Kristof column is scary on many levels. Lady pee (as Stephen Colbert called it) is going to turn everyone female!!! Forget about marriage only being between a man and a woman. There won’t be any men! No more babies! It’s going to be all Children of Men! But that’s just the half of it. It turns out I could be fat ’cause I drink tap:
This month, the Endocrine Society, an organization of scientists specializing in this field, issued a landmark 50-page statement. It should be a wake-up call.
“We present the evidence that endocrine disruptors have effects on male and female reproduction, breast development and cancer, prostate cancer, neuroendocrinology, thyroid, metabolism and obesity, and cardiovascular endocrinology,” the society declared.
“The rise in the incidence in obesity,” it added, “matches the rise in the use and distribution of industrial chemicals that may be playing a role in generation of obesity.”
Emphisis mine. There are only two theories really about the so-called obesity epidemic: calories or hormones. But both of these theories are firmly rooted in food. In both camps there’s at base the idea that you can control your weight: it’s either how much or what you eat that’s causing you to be fat. It’s your choice.
Kristof’s column goes way beyond food. If you’ve read other posts you probably know I’m with the endocrinology people, I’m in the hormones crowd. It’s all about how foods affect hormones that regulate fat accumulation and burning. But it’s still about food. It’s always about food.
This isn’t about food. Could obesity really be caused by water and hairspray? Holy shit. Really? It’s not the processed foods? Or butter and eggs? It’s not the commuting to work by car and sitting at your desk all day? Really? Can I quit the gym if I just stop drinking tap water? (You know how many diets insist that you drink 8 glasses of water a day. Oops! Psych!) And hairspray? Where did that come from? Who still uses hairspray?
It’s fascinating and it may be a conversation changer, if it turns out the science is strong behind this (although it looked like the science was strong behind low fat diets so really what does that prove?).
Let’s be honest: what to eat may be an ever popular topic in America, but nothing gets the attention faster than phrases like “undescended testicles” and “genital deformities.”
fat is where it’s at
Yes!! Finally, people are catching on. From Ode Magazine:
Even the American Heart Association (AHA), a leader in the campaign against dietary fat, recently revised its nutritional guidelines, increasing the daily recommendations for fat. “The science just wasn’t there,” acknowledges Robert Eckel, president of the AHA and a professor of endocrinology, metabolism and diabetes at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.
Fat is delicious. I also really want to get this book: Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, with Recipes. I hope it has recipes with lard and suet.
Why am I fat? It’s not the fat in food that’s for sure. Is it the HFCS? Maybe. Right now I’m feeling like I don’t really know and I don’t really care. I just want to enjoy my food.
And Bonus! My stomach has stopped hurting!! Just magically after what 2, 3 years I can eat and not be in pain!! It’s so exciting!
Fat and Order
Paul Campos’ article Fat Judges Need Not Apply makes me want to cry. Why am I surprised? I knew this. I know this. Women are only worth what they look, like nothing else. I should only be surprised that it looks like most of the comments, so far, are from men and not women.
Most people are talking about the men’s desire quote or creepy old Rehnquist, but it’s this quote that gets me: “for average-height women, no increased mortality risk correlating with weight begins to appear until weights above 200 pounds”.
Why doesn’t anyone EVER says that?! No amount of fat is acceptable for women. They make you think you have to be a size 2 to be healthy. So women who wear a size 14 think they’re headed toward imminent death!
And god forbid if you’re a size 16! Newly fat Brit author Tanya Gold put on weight and discovered there’s no amount of money that can get you a designer frock if you’re that size. None!
Is this a tipping point? Every obsession has it’s end? Suddenly tulips are no longer that necessary. With Campos using the science, and fat women with a lot of money to spend during the New Great Depression, and the fact that models can’t possibly get any thinner (unless designers start to use corpses in their ads; they’d all consider it modern and edgy), could we be seeing the beginning of the end of the reign of fat terror? Can I have some butter now?
results
It hasn’t even been 24 hours and already my stomach isn’t bloated up at the top of my chest. It’s still fat, but not bloated.
I went back to scrambling eggs in a little cast iron skillet. They taste even better!
They’re trying to kill us
The current dietary “conventional wisdom” is going to be the (pre-mature) death of us all.
Public Policy That Makes Test Subjects of Us All explains what’s been going on for years. Someone finds a study that suggests something and then they stick it in all the food and if you can avoid that they stick it in the water.
In the past year, researchers led by Salvatore Paterna of the University of Palermo have reported one of the most rigorous experiments so far: a randomized clinical trial of heart patients who were put on different diets. Those on a low-sodium diet were more likely to be rehospitalized and to die, results that prompted the researchers to ask, “Is sodium an old enemy or a new friend?”
They act as if substances act in isolation in the body. It’s all connected. If you lower one thing you’re going to raise something else. And vice versa. They’re the scientists. Why don’t they know this?
Plus, lowering salt in foods is pretty silly. It’s not like the trans fat ban. Restaurants will just make sure they have plenty of salt shakers on every table. We’ll probably end up eating more salt. Maybe we would be healthier!
And once more Gary Taubes is all over it!
The Oprah Thing
The Oprah Thing has been raging for almost a month now and I’m wondering why no one has mentioned race?
I know that we’re supposed to be all post racial in this new Age of Obama, but I find it really interesting that authors and articles haven’t picked up on one of the most disturbing elements of this debate: The most powerful black woman in the world surrounds herself with white men who tell her she’s not good enough.
How fucked up is that?
Two really good articles have come out recently: The Oprah Syndrome in the NY Post and Spanking Oprah on Salon. They both mention that Bob, Dr. Oz, and “Dr.” Phil as the strong paternal types who keep her in line. But the article don’t seem to “make the connection”.
There are so many socio-racial-sexual things going on here I’m not sure where to begin. The standard of beauty in the west has not included the black woman. That may be changing. I’ve been shocked by the media singing of Michelle Obama’s beauty. I don’t disagree. I’m just not used to the world seeing a black woman who’s not really light or with white features, as beautiful.
I remember once reading in O (I have no idea which issue) that Bob said to Oprah when she was gaining weight something like “Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?” Tell me what was she supposed to see in the mirror, Bob?
But this pretty white man has the nerve to tell this powerful black woman who made his career, “you’re disgusting”. And she let’s him. And she reported it in her own magazine, not in outrage, and with an eye toward banishment or shunning, but in gratitude as if to say, “Finally. Someone is being honest with me and telling me I’m worthless.”
Oprah’s weight is the least of her problems.
the most wonderful time of the year
I’m so fucking tired of exercise and weight loss commercials. Seriously, do I need people telling me every five minutes that my life is meaningless and a waste of time if I’m not thin with a flat stomach.
These commercials play on people’s self hatred, their sense of worthlessness, which most of us have whether we’re thin or not. It’s just that if you’re fat the world tells you you’re justified in your self-hatred. I’m so sick of hating myself because I’m fat. I’m so sick of the next plot to get thin. It’s all so tiresome. I just want to eat what I want.
Oprah said “I started eating whatever I wanted — and that’s never good.” What else does this apply to? Let’s change the word ‘eating’ to see what happens:
I started doing whatever I wanted — and that’s never good.
I started saying whatever I wanted — and that’s never good.
I started fucking whomever I wanted — and that’s never good.
I started living how I wanted — and that’s never good.
I started believing whatever I wanted — and that’s never good.
See where I’m going with this? Sometimes I feel like my life is just all about the suppression of desire. Food, sex, what I say, what I do, what I even think. Do I really need to suppress every desire I’ve ever had? Can I even figure out what I want? There are so many ‘No! Bad Girl!’ shouts I have no idea any more. Have I ever known.
My stomach hurts.
