Binge Eating Disorder

This post isn’t really about fatness, but I was thinking about binge eating disorder as a diagnosis. You can take a look at the diagnostic criteria here, but it seems to get into a thorny realm because one criterion is a sense of lack of control. To me, that sounds like saying “addictive behavior” while avoiding that phrase. It leads to some questions:

• Is binge eating itself a problem, or just a symptom of a deeper problem?
• Does this diagnosis really help people?
• Is there an issue with the diagnosis being incorrectly applied to fat people?
• The diagnosis also mentions distress, disgust, etc. If one binges without these feelings, does one have the disorder?

I don’t have a firm viewpoint, but I’d like to hear yours.

September NAAFA Newsletter

I forgot to post the link to this month’s NAAFA newsletter last week; sorry about that. But here it is, and I’ve pre-clicked for you so that the link below takes you straight to the fat news. Enjoy!

http://www.naafaonline.com/newsletterstuff/oldnewsletterstuff/September%202016%20NAAFA%20Newsletter.html#LETTER.BLOCK17

Fat news through July 27, 2016

We’re back, and talking about fatties again!

July 20, 2016: Emily Baines discusses a run-in between Whitney Way Thore (star of My Big Fat Fabulous Life) and comedian Kerryn Feehan (first link), when Feehan made some fat-phobic remarks during a guest appearance on a radio show where Thore interned. Thore continues to be an activist for positive body image and has a TedX talk on the subject (second link).
http://hellogiggles.com/body-shaming-comedian
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaXBYcfVYZM

July 22, 2016: People with lipodystrophy, a rare genetic disorder, are thin but suffer from the same conditions that are associated with being fat such as high cholesterol, fatty liver disease, and type 2 diabetes. Scientists have found a clue into why some fat people are metabolically healthy and how this knowledge could help everyone be healthier.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/26/health/skinny-fat.html

July 24, 2016: Laura Bogart is fat, and she is okay with that. She shares her journey to fat acceptance and the lessons learned along the way. (Comments on this page are the usual sort of fat shaming, though.)
http://www.salon.com/2013/07/25/i_choose_to_be_fat

July 27, 2016: Ka Leo O Hawai’i, the campus newspaper of the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, explains that the body positive movement is not the promotion of fatness, but rather a “feel-good cause” for people who don’t fit society’s ideal.
http://www.kaleo.org/opinion/the-plus-size-movement-does-not-promote-obesity/article_b5bad950-51ea-11e6-b968-873605b52027.html

Fat news through July 15, 2016

Here’s the latest in our (roughly) weekly series, bringing you the latest news and research that affects us fatties.

July 8, 2016: A study finds that increased BMI is not associated with higher morbidity or mortality for hospitalized patients, whereas being underweight is an independent predictor for hospital complications.
http://drc.bmj.com/content/4/1/e000200.abstract

July 10, 2016: A market research firm claims that Americans are shifting their focus from weight loss and dieting to health, which is hurting the diet industry. One can only hope.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-death-of-the-diet-industry-2016-7

July 12, 2016: Several past studies have shown a link between artificial sweeteners and increased appetite. Now, researchers in Australia show that these sweeteners trigger a neuronal fasting response, explaining the increased motivation to eat.
http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2016/07/why-do-artificial-sweeteners-increase-appetite
http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/abstract/S1550-4131(16)30296-0

July 13, 2016: A meta-analysis of 239 prospective studies on four continents shows increased mortality among overweight and obese people. Although people with chronic disease, smokers, and those who died in the first five years of the study were filtered out, there was no correction for other confounding variables such as socioeconomic status or ethnicity.
http://press.thelancet.com/BMI.pdf

July 14, 2016: A recent study finds that one in five “healthy” weight Americans has prediabetes, a sharp increase from 20 years prior. Although abdominal fat has also increased, it does not appear to be the primary cause of this.
http://news.health.com/2016/07/14/normal-weight-may-not-protect-against-diabetes
http://www.annfammed.org/content/14/4/304.short

July 15, 2016: Diet firm Herbalife gets hit with a $200 million fine for unfair and deceptive practices, and is told it needs to restructure its business. The fine is due to Herbalife operating like a pyramid scheme.
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2016/07/herbalife-will-restructure-its-multi-level-marketing-operations

Fat news through July 5, 2016

Sorry, folks; we missed a couple of weeks. But it’s OK, we’re getting caught up right now. Also, just to let you know, we pull story links from Facebook, Tumblr, Yahoo Groups, and other places, but to be honest it’s mostly Facebook these days as there has grown a wonderful network of fat positive people who are finding great stories and studies for us.

Some more honesty: I don’t recall where I got the link about Lizzo, probably from a Facebook friend, but I was really pleased to see Tante Terri take it and run in her recent blog post. Yay, Terri!

So, off we go!

November 26, 2015: Rapper and singer Lizzo’s song “My Skin” celebrates living in your own skin with a music video featuring fat women (first link). As part of the Underneath video project (second link), Lizzo talks about being a fat woman as she removes clothing, wig and makeup showing the beautiful woman underneath.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfEhyi8N__Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8wKpyjUons

June 19, 2016: Kath Read gives JC Penney’s video for its new plus-size clothing a rave review, urging other companies to learn from what Penney is doing right in its marketing to the fat community.
https://fatheffalump.wordpress.com/2016/06/19/marketing-to-fat-women-this-is-how-you-do-it

June 22, 2016: Substantia Jones and her various projects are highlighted in an article about her current adventure, traveling through the Southern Hemisphere photographing fat people in the nude.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3649964/Substantia-Jones-travels-world-photographing-naked-fat-ladies-Adipositivity-Project.html

June 24, 2016: Charlotte Cooper provides a basic do and don’t list for healthcare practitioners when dealing with a fat patient, as well as some suggestions on how the fat person can recover after a bad run-in with the healthcare profession. Also, check out NAAFA’s guidelines on the same subject (2nd link) and Stef’s list of fat friendly healthcare professionals (3rd link).
https://obesitytimebomb.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/fat-101-for-nurses-and-health.html
http://www.naafaonline.com/dev2/about/Brochures/NAAFA_Guidelines_for_Healthcare_Providers.pdf
http://cat-and-dragon.com/stef/Fat/ffp.html

June 27, 2016: A Swedish study find that irrespective of access to health care, socioeconomic status is a predictor of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality among people with type 2 diabetes (first link). A related commentary (second link) states that addressing socioeconomic disadvantage may help us better treat type 2 diabetes.
http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2530287
http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2530291

June 29, 2016: An analysis of multiple data sets finds that eating butter has little or no effect on mortality, cardiovascular disease, or diabetes. An inverse (protective) effect may exist in relation to diabetes and thus more research is urged to explore the health effects of butter and dairy fat.
http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2016/06/no-evidence-prove-butter-consumption-leads-chronic-disease-mortality
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0158118

June 29, 2016: Brynne Huffman’s Facebook response to a woman who dissed Brynne for wearing shorts goes viral. Here’s hoping that the woman has read it and has learned a lesson about acceptance.
http://hellogiggles.com/woman-shamed-wearing-shorts-writes-awesome-fb-post

July 5, 2016: Katie Clark explains what it means to be a fat person living in a fatphobic society and why body-shaming is not about health concerns but about buy-in to stereotypes and body policing.
http://theindependent.ca/2016/07/05/dear-fatphobics

July 5, 2016: Lindy West, author of Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman, came out as a fat woman to friends and co-workers, confronting her boss on his derogatory comments about fat people. Talking about the discrimination faced at the workplace by fat people, she urges that employers embrace a “no body talk” policy.
http://www.fastcompany.com/3061210/the-hidden-discrimination-against-being-fat-at-work

Fat news through June 14, 2016

Courtesy of me and Tante Terri . . .

May 25, 2016: Artist and activist Kelli Jean Drinkwater presents a talk on the word “fat” and how existing in a fat body can be a radical political statement.
https://tedxsydney.com/talk/the-fear-of-fat-the-real-elephant-in-the-room-kelli-jean-drinkwater

June 2016: A letter to the editor published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings takes the publication to task for categorizing body fat percentage as a healthy lifestyle behavior in a previous article. Unfortunately, the letter continues with hand-wringing about the “war on obesity”.
http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(16)30111-2/fulltext

June 8, 2016: A small study comparing weight loss intervention and weight-neutral health intervention finds that a weight-neutral intervention can yield many health benefits without weight loss, and those benefits are sustainable over a 2 year follow-up period.
http://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S0195666316302343

June 13, 2016: Katherine DM Clover shares her struggle upon losing thin privilege and relearning to love her body when she became a fat person.
http://www.ravishly.com/2016/06/13/summer-i-got-fat-love-story

June 14, 2016: London mayor Sadiq Khan bans ads that feature or promote unhealthy body images or are fat-shaming from the London public transportation system.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/15/world/europe/london-bans-ads-with-unrealistic-body-images.html

June 14, 2016: The Aspire Assist device, a tube to the exterior of the body through which one can remove up to a third of the stomach’s contents, has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The second link is for a petition demanding the FDA withdraw its approval for this device.
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/fda-approves-weight-loss-stomach-pump-aspireassist-combat-obesity-n592141
https://www.change.org/p/eating-disorders-activists-demand-fda-withdraw-approval-of-the-aspire-bariatrics-assisted-bulimia-device

June 14, 2016: Researchers look at five weight-loss medications approved by the FDA and find that none of them are particularly effective.
http://www.kpbs.org/news/2016/jun/14/san-diego-scientist-compares-obesity-drugs-finds-n
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2528211

Fat news through June 7, 2016

Hey, friends! Whaliam here, along with Tante Terri, bringing you this week’s fat news, with a couple of very cool items this time. Enjoy! (or not, as applicable)

May 23, 2016: More survivors from The Biggest Loser talk about what was going on behind the scenes while they were on the show and the long term damage to their lives.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11643393

June 2016: The Berkeley Public Library presents Fat Positive Summer Festival, a series of events starting June 22 featuring lecturer and fat activist Virgie Tovar, as well as a group of short films and readings.
https://www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org/fat-positive-summer-festival

June 3, 2016: Doctors’ bias towards fat people can be deadly. When a doctor blames all health issues on excess weight, real health problems go untreated and fat patients wait for treatment until small problems become serious health issues.
https://www.statnews.com/2016/06/03/weight-obese-doctors-patients

June 5, 2016: Curvy Girl Lingerie owner Chrystal believes women of all sizes have the right to feel sexy and have hot sex, and we agree!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJCTUOFi_p8

June 7, 2016: The latest CDC survey shows a slight upswing in obesity rates, particularly for women. An accompanying editorial published in JAMA wants to blame the food and restaurant industry and believes focus on prevention is the best way to move forward, despite the failure of most interventions used to date.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/07/health/obesity-trends-women-men-teens/index.html
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2526613
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2526639

June 7, 2016: Lina Cohen lets the readers of Teen Vogue know what it is like going to the doctor’s office when you are fat teen. She advocates finding doctors who respect you and treat you with dignity and preferably are onboard with HAES principles.
http://www.teenvogue.com/story/fat-shaming-doctors