Blog Wars
11:37 a.m.
Fat women need to go on a diet.For real this is their conclusion.
Not, hey, maybe the gov't should subsidize gym memberships or at the very least gym childcare. Not, let's change a culture that stigmitizes [sic] fat women. Not, let's work on making discrimination against fat people in hiring and promotion illegal. Not, universal health care for all. Not, treat depression. Not, subsidizing poor women's wages so that poverty doesn't exasperate [I think she meant exacerbate] their health problems.
No, the conclusion is: go on a diet, you fat ass.
This, after I just read an article about how some fat is actually the result of viral infection, sort of has me in a tizzy.
I could not let this go without leaving a response:
You have a point that society stigmatizes fat women more than fat men, but the article also pointed out several times that obese women are more likely to develop hypertension, diabetes and heart disease than their thinner counterparts. I think that this alone is reason enough for losing weight. What I would like to see, though, is the stigma of being obese applied to men as well. That way everyone will be encouraged to lose weight and live healthier lifestyles.
My colleague could not leave me unchallenged and answered thusly:
elgan,let me not be too snippy in this, but let me be clear.
I am a vegetarian, who eats a diet almost any dietician would consider exemplary if I weren't sitting in front of them in their office. I have a candy bar or some patoto chips maybe every two months. I'm not kidding. One of my part time jobs is giving walking tours of the city I live in and when I'm not giving walking tours I walk to school or the store or wherever I want to go because I think walking is good for me. I also walk as exercise and until a few months ago ran fifteen to twenty miles a week. I have a strong, healthy heart, low cholestoral and low blood pressure. In other words, if you go by all the indicators doctors use to determine over all health, I'm healthy. And guess what, I'm still fat by most people's standards. My doctor's chart lists me not as overweight but as obese, even though I can run circles around her skinny little ass. I know women bigger than me who run marathons. So while there may be a correlation between fat and ill health it may not be causation and I think anytime you start talking about reducing people's earning power through stigmatization and blatant discrimination you're kind of siding with anti-semites, racists and sexists. Not all fat people are unhealthy and not all unhealthy people are fat.
And I really don't think stigmatizing people helps them "do something". I think giving them tools and resources to do those things can help them achieve those goals. But what the fuck do I know, I'm just a bigfatlazyloser, right?
and now that I'm on the high horse (come on someone, grab a stick and just try to knock me down):
we KNOW that stress and depression contribute to obesity so why isn't this on everyone's tongue? why the hell arent' [sic] these researchers talking about handing out free sex toys and having man servants to massage my feet after I've been working all day? and then placing them on a pillow. a pillow under my feet sure would go a long way to reducing my stress. You know, the thing is, this problem is so fucking complicated and telling people to go on a diet just isn't going to relieve a pandemic of obesity, if it did my mom would be a size six instead of a twenty-six because that woman has faithfully been on diets for the last thirty years. but you know she's fat so she must be doing SOMETHING wrong.
Now, was I supposed to just let that lie when she challenged someone to knock her off her high horse? No, sirree! Here is my answer:
Okay, dear, calm down now. I wasn't attacking you. In fact, I wasn't attacking anyone, except perhaps society for gender stigmas (why is it okay for men to be fat and not women, for example?). I too am a vegetarian. I too walk a lot. I also belly dance. I avoid junk food, although I admit that maybe once a month I will indulge in something bad for me. I am not overweight. However, because I am only 5' tall, it is extremely easy for me to gain weight. If I eat according to the Guide, or even Weight Watchers, for that matter, I gain weight. It is a constant struggle for me to balance what my eyes and stomach tell me I want to eat with what the scale tells me when I step on them the next day.Human beings are basically domesticated animals. If you look at a herd of deer in the wild, for example, you will notice very little bodily variation, and it has nothing to do with inbreeding. It has to do with the fact that they run around all day looking for food and probably just get enough of it. Human beings, on the other hand, with their big brains, have devised ways to produce and acquire food through a minimum of effort, and so the calories expended do not match those consumed. The more industrialized the nation, the easier it is to acquire one's daily nourishment with a minimum of physical labour.
Why is it then that poor people, who should have fewer resources to buy food, tend to be obese more than their affluent compatriots? Believe me, it has nothing to do with stress and everything to do with eating patterns. I go shopping and I see what people put in their carts. Rich people can afford to buy fresh produce and lean meats, and do. Poor people, in order to stave off hunger, buy whatever fills them up cheaply, and that means mostly refined starches: potatoes, white bread, pasta. I'm not making this up. Poor people also seem to spend more money on junk food and beer than wealthy people. Where I live, anyway, wealthy people buy wine and hard liquor and premium beer. Poor people buy Budweiser, and lots of it. Again, these comments are from observation.
People come in all shapes and sizes. Evolution has encouraged genes that store fat to stave off the inevitable famine and display themselves in different ways. There are African cultures where a big butt is considered sexy, but that same propensity to store fat in the glutes is not attractive by N. American standards. Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the beholder comes with a whole array of different eyes. There is not one single body shape that could be a standard of beauty, because everyone has his own idea.
If you are overweight but healthy, then you are one of the rarities. I congratulate you. My husband also sees overweight men on the tennis court who can run circles around their opponents. But I know many, many overweight people who wheeze when they climb stairs, who grunt when they get out chairs, who complain that their knees and ankles pain them, who are taking high blood pressure medication instead of reducing the amount of salt in their diets, and who eat too much and exercise too little. One of my closest friends falls into this category, and I worry about her.
There is a solution, and it has little to do with reducing stress in the work place (although that would be nice) or destigmatizing overweight and obesity in our society. Let's face it, people are not meant to be overweight. They are meant to be lean, mean, bison chasing machines (I bet there's a ton of stress involved in hunting your own food). Governments need to encourage populations to get more exercise, and they have to find a way to get food manufacturers and distributors to stop making it so easy for people to eat so much. In my local grocery store, there are now racks in every aisle containing chocolate bars. This does not help towards slimming the population. Drive-through at McDonalds also doesn't help, and the lack of leaner choices at the counter is extremely frustrating to those who want to eat healthier, and for vegetarians like myself.
People have very little will power when it comes to what goes in their mouths. I am a prime example. If there is a bowl of pretzels on the table, I will eat them. I do not buy junk food for my teenage son (who is so deprived) because I will eat it. Education about these things is great. I think that's what you mean by "tools and resources". It's not enough. As long as there are candy bars at the check-out, as long as potatoes are cheap and broccoli is expensive, as long as there is more white than whole-wheat pasta on the shelf, more whole and 2% than skim and 1% milk in the dairy case, people will choose what appeals to their tastes and not their waists.
There, I've swung my stick.
There you have it. Blog wars.
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