I got an e-mail, that had been sent to all the staff at the law office I work for, saying that they were going to do a Biggest Loser type game for the staff.

Total trigger for me.  I’m furious.  I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to hear about this.

So I sent an e-mail to everybody at the office saying, “Please do not put me on copy for any of this.  I am a proponent of size acceptance with a focus on health and not weight.”

What I did was take care of me.  If other people at work want to do this, that is not my problem.  None of my beewax.  As Samuel Goldwyn once said, “Include me out.”

And now I know that several other staff members have now spoken up about not wanting to participate or even hear about this.  One acknowledging that I had put into words what she felt.  Yea me. Yea them.

I feel like not only did I stand up for myself, but I helped some other people stand up for themselves.  To tell the truth, I was a bit surprised that other people at the office would feel as I do.

So when you stand up for yourself, you may be helping or educating others.  You never know.

My answer is, “so what?” There are two points here: (1) all medicines have side effects, and (2) mental health is as important as any other type of health. People are prescribed anti-depression drugs even though weight gain is a common side effect because the disease is so crippling that it’s an acceptable tradeoff.

There might be some fat folks who eat more because they’re self-medicating. That is, they’re cutting out the middleman, so to speak, and rather than take anti-depressants, just eating more to feel better. To me, that’s also an acceptable tradeoff. Why is the weight gain acceptable in one case and not the other?

Okay.  A study looks at how when older women diet and they regain the weight (as we know they are going to do), what is it that they are losing and what is it that they are regaining.  And the answer is:

Specifically, for every 1 kg fat lost during the weight-loss intervention, 0.26 kg lean tissue was lost; for every 1 kg fat regained over the following year, only 0.12 kg lean tissue was regained.

Get it?  You lose fat and lean tissue.  When you regain, you end up literally fatter and with less lean tissue, even if you don’t weigh more than when you started the diet.  (And they don’t even get into the fact that fat cells are forever – unlike lean tissue cells, fat cells do not go away – they simply “deflate”, unless you physically remove them – and even then, there is evidence that your body will create more fat cells to replace those your removed.).

And while there are a lot of new studies out there talking about the protective nature of fat as we get older, loss of muscle and bone is detrimental, especially to older people.

Now want to go crazy? Here is what the lead author of the study had to say about weight loss for older women:

“But despite the great likelihood that people will gain it back and the suggestion that it will have an unfavorable impact on their lean-tissue-to-fat composition, ‘I think there are huge benefits to losing weight,’ she says. When older obese people deliberately slim down, their osteoarthritis improves, Nicklas says. They can get up out of chairs and climb stairs more easily. Even if they eventually regain all of the weight, she says, it usually takes a few years to do it.”

Except the study showed that 80% of the women had regained the weight within one year!  And I’m pretty sure in order to get out of chairs and climb stairs you need muscle (i.e. lean tissue).

So this doctor ADMITS that dieting will ultimately have an unfavorable impact on most of her patients, and yet she is still pushing for dieting.  Talk about drinking the Koolaid.

http://www.webmd.com/menopause/news/20111216/weight-regained-in-later-years-has-more-fat

http://www.ajcn.org/content/94/3/767.abstract

http://www.naafaonline.com/newsletterstuff/oldnewsletterstuff/March%202011%20NAAFA%20Newsletter.html

There’s only so much that NAAFA can do to raise awareness. There’s not really a NAAFA army, just a handful of volunteers who issue press releases (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naafapressreleases/message/61), talk to news organizations, and basically try to work the media. Some readers of that issue of the newsletter probably did do as NAAFA asked and e-mailed the organization’s director, but the effect of these actions isn’t apparent. One additional thing NAAFA could have done was start a petition like this one: http://www.change.org/petitions/childrens-healthcare-of-atlanta-end-the-stop-sugarcoating-campaign; petitions can do a lot of good sometimes.

As I said, the current reaction by the fatosphere is great, but the ads have been on for a while, and a lot of damage has already been done.

So do me (and yourself) a favor: go to the first link above and take a look at last March’s NAAFA Newsletter. (There are more (and newer) newsletters here: http://www.naafaonline.com/dev2/about/NEWSLETTERS.html) If you like what you see, and want to stay on top of issues like these Georgia ads, click on the button in the right column that says “Join Our Mailing List”, and you’ll get a NAAFA Newsletter once a month. (Note: I help prepare the newsletter.) It’s free, it’s only one e-mail a month, it’s fun, and you can unsubscribe at any time. Try it!

Instead of making new year’s resolutions involving weight loss, you know, the ones that end in sadness and self-revulsion, join us in the REVOLUTION. Make a resolution (or goal, or idea, or just something to have fun with) to love your body and yourself, and spread the message of HAES, health at every size. Change your facebook page to a size-positive image, tweet about HAES with the #HAES hashtag, read a fat-friendly book, or just be the fabulous person you are!

Check out the resources here: http://revolutionsresources.blogspot.com

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 26,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 10 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Mr. Santiago thinks the key is in the respiratory system (possibly because his own study showed that fat fit people are “in shape”), which he thinks works more efficiently in the fat and fit population.  So a fat athlete’s more efficient respiratory system is a problem?  Has he considered that this may be why fat people are able to be fit?

Mr. Santiago claims he is doing all of this so he can help regular fat people – not so regular fat people can become fat and fit people, but to fight “this epidemic of obesity.”  Well, fuck you very much.

You would think that a former Olympic athlete might appreciate that being fit is more important than being a certain size or weight; that he would be interested on how to encourage more people to enjoy exercise no matter what size they are (and what size they end up).  But no.  Mr. Santiago obviously has a problem with the idea that fat people can exercise, become fit and still be fat.

Attitudes like Mr. Santiago’s make it hard to convince people that there is any reason for exercise other than for weight loss; that if weight loss doesn’t accompany exercise, there is no purpose to the exercise.

This attitude is harmful because:

1) It leads to fat people giving up on exercise if they don’t lose weight, thinking either

(a) The exercise failed or

(b) They have “failed” in some way;

2) It leads people to believe the fat people they see either

(a) Need to exercise or

(b) Do not exercise.

3) It leads people who see fat people exercise to assume that the reason for the exercise is weight loss.

As Whaliam so succinctly summarized it:  Even though Santiago’s own data show that you can be fat and fit, he still sees fatness as a bad thing.  Fat people who are in shape and stay fat must still be somehow “out of shape”.  This circular reasoning causes Santiago to circle back and plant his own head up his ass.

http://www.kens5.com/news/health/Texas-study-looks-at-why-some-who-are-overweight-arent-restricted-in-exercise-135894573.html

http://chestjournal.chestpubs.org/content/early/2011/09/21/chest.11-1147.short

The lead author, Dr. Elsie Taveras said the study should be used to raise awareness about potential risks but is not a reason to put babies on a diet.

Okay, that seems fair.

Other doctors point out that babies often grow in spurts.  Dr. Michelle Lample (director of Emory University’s Center for the Study of Human Health) is afraid the guide could be used to feed infants less and could prompt feeding patterns that could lead to obesity later.

Lample also pointed out that while many infants crossed at least two key points on the growth charts, only 12% were obese at age 5 and slightly more at age 10.  The National average for obese preschoolers is 10% and about 19% by age 11.  Showing that this “predictor” is not very good at predicting.

What scares me is that with fat-phobia being so common place in the healthcare professions, anything that would lead to labeling an infant as (horrors) fat (or heaven forbid, possibly becoming fat) puts that infant at the mercy of other people’s fat phobia at the time when brain, muscle, and bone development are dependent on good nutrition.

Dr. Joanna Lewis (a pediatrician in Park Ridge, Illinois) seems to me to be a prime example.  She supports the idea that infancy is not too young to start thinking about obesity.  She emphasized that rapid growth in infancy doesn’t mean babies are DOOMED (yes, doomed) to become obese.  “It’s not a life sentence.”  Oh boy.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2011/11/09/baby_obesity_study_is_just_link_bait.html

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/babies-obesity-path-sign-may-132732172.html

http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/165/11/993

Scary enough for you?

Now look at the story coming out of Appleton, Wisconsin where parents are facing jail time for starving their infant daughter because the father was afraid she’d become fat.

http://lacrossetribune.com/news/state-and-regional/wi/appleton-parents-charged-with-starving-baby/article_571bfad4-1142-11e1-9464-001cc4c03286.html

In fairness, the healthcare professionals and social workers urged this couple to feed their child more – and the parents continued to starve their child to the point where she had no subcutaneous fat.

Well, new parents don’t always know what they are doing, right?  Except Christopher Sultze is 35 and his wife Mary is 36 and they have three other children.  Mary’s attorney isn’t sure there was any criminal activity or just misguided parenting intentions.

http://lacrossetribune.com/news/state-and-regional/wi/appleton-parents-charged-with-starving-baby/article_571bfad4-1142-11e1-9464-001cc4c03286.html#ixzz1eBrVTV6D

Obviously, this is an extreme case, but it shows what can happen when people become convinced that being fat is the worst thing that can happen.  And people become convinced when that is the message they are constantly getting from healthcare professionals, the media and the government.

“Consequences are unpitying.”  George Eliot

I’ve read descriptions of her as having “exaggerated” breasts and belly, and that therefore she must be a “fertility symbol”. But she’s not exaggerated; she’s a very realistic figure, apart from the very thin arms and lack of detail on the face. I’ve seen women who look pretty much just like her (heck, I married one). She might represent a fertility goddess. Or, she might represent someone that the sculptor really liked looking at. I suspect the latter.

What does she mean to you?