Entitlement is the spur

When I first got involved in internet FA was that I was adamant, no more must the trashing of our lives be other people's weight loss aid. Or someone's business model come to think of it. I was so overwhelmed by the level of indulgence others felt safe to wallow in.

That they had the nerve to feel entitled to this. How dare they not even feel a sense of embarrassment about being bratty enough to demand this. It was all so Marie Antoinette (though I know she probably didn't say that).

This and other sources of grasping entitlement have been allowed to grow and that my friends, dies hard.

Disingenuousness abounds, talking about "downplaying the obesity epidemic", well excuse you. Hype is all it is. And if that has been satisfactory, what are obesity harpies still harping on about?

Also, in terms of lacking real interest don't forget;

• Disseminating quackery as the remedy. That's the biggie, the resolute refusal to accept the failure of cals in/out as a solution is a sign that their pwarblem is a low priority. It's effectively the same as not bothering to do anything. And that cannot be hidden, despite any sound and fury.

• Regarding purported risks of obesity, unthink all over the place-i.e. fatz have bad hearts, they need to sweat till they bleed. They don't care, they can't possibly be happy. Their problem is comfort eating, we must make them more uncomfortable on a permanent basis. You are at risk of high blood pressure, you need to be highly stressed into "weight loss" and so on.

• The primary target is food, so encourage calorie dense food to advance it's grip in every possible public sphere, especially places where that didn't have to happen hospitals, continue, up until recently to feed children what could genuinely be called crap is the ultimate comment on the fatuous "child obesity" rhetoric.

• The secondary target calorie expenditure, complain about lack of physical activity but remove it from the curriculum and keep children desk bound. Allow general environment to be designed around motor cars. Where's the calls for pedestrianization, more bike lanes Becky?

Not a dicky when there's the old thrill of beating up on a captive audience (not so much now).

Whether these things will make people slim or not, is moot. The point is being complained about and what actions flow from that. 

I'm of the school of thought that if you keep doing things you know will produce or not produce certain results and you keep doing them, then that is a sign that maybe you don't want what you think you want after all. 

Ms Hands tries to use the chestnut of the confusion of the consumer-without mentioning people of her own profession are an important part of that- to imply this will create the same effect with weight.

In a way she's right, the essential problems are the same, just not what she thinks. It's more a balanced and fuller picture begins to confuse the impression made through the incompleteness of bias. Indeed, how confused are we really? Seems many of us have the food proselytizers pretty much pegged. Beyond eat a balanced diet and enjoy moving around, the science isn't there.

There are no panaceas or absolute guarantees.

Where the healthists get into trouble is their refusal to let go of their pretense that slim=healthy, healthy eating=healthy, ergo, they know how to make you slim through what they peddle. They don't. They should be pleased to perhaps assist an increase in people's well being. But too many of them just have to have a bee in their bonnet about fatz.

When I read this;

Recently, I've seen a spate of stories about how obesity isn't such a big deal after all and a few extra pounds could be good for us. As a dietitian committed to helping make healthy living not only normal but fun, these stories are disturbing and downright dangerous.

My mind cheekily tried to turn the highlighted into "committed to making a healthy living." I think that's about right though. Too many of her profession helped to advance the fat phobic agenda in order to advance their own kudos.

Which can be read as a comment on the value of that. 

I note she didn't say, 'This disturbs me because fat people are dropping like flies and why doesn't anyone care.' Oh no. It's all very finger wagging. "Rather than finding a loophole to avoid improving your health..."

Ha, ha, ha, what a laugh! The very idea that she'd give a damn about fat people. Or we wouldn't all be too beat up to notice. 

Seriously? The pernicious belief that we're all just desperate to destroy our own bodies. All around the world, for all time it's been a pretty universal suspicion that folks may lean towards being a little bit too much out for ourselves. Always scheming for our own advancement, too often at the expense of others. That it is it other people who are more likely to want to do harm to us, than we want to do to ourselves.

How clever of people like Ms Hand to reverse that presumption. 

Apparently, only she can be counted on to want what is good for us, we determinedly seek ill for ourselves. Shame on us and our original sin reborn.

The possibility that her brand of health(ism) isn't the only, one doesn't come into it. But that's the security of her POV and a large part of it's appeal, a sense of security.

She doesn't want that to be had by fatz though and that's a large part of the crusade's appeal for minds like this. If you step back a bit, you can see a mind's instinctive attempt at finding a balance two halves.

Non judgement with judgementalism makes a whole.

Her emotional mal-judgements are not the burden of fat people though.

Accepting obesity affects everyone

I've been having the usual disjointed interchange with some fat phobe who's showing their patooty. This person does the same thing a lot of anti progressive types do. Complains bitterly about others making themselves victims, by presenting themselves as a victim of that.
Now I hasten to add this person was like most fat haters being totally disingenuous but trying to front their excuse for pure mindless hate. This leads to the curious effect of them not understanding their own argument.

Their complain came in the form that fat people are claiming to be the only 'victims' of body bias. For a start, I claim more that we are victimized rather than necessarily victims-it depends.

This sortie has come up time and again, feminists like this a lot too. Any pointing to the unacceptability of being converted into disease is trivialized or erased-not trivial enough to stop it though.

When that doesn't quiet fatz, it becomes "You think you're the only ones". The upshot? I explained to this person that 'obesity' victimizes slim and thin people because it underlines a principle that can be applied to any weight.

Your body size as a collection of your wrong decisions, behaviour, morality. It's a full inventory of judgement at a glance.

Predictably, this person is confused and blamed me for this confusion! They couldn't work out that I was agreeing with their ever so disingenuously made point, in reverse if you like. That 'obesity' has enabled more body bashing for everyone.

Accepting 'obesity' means you accept 'thin bashing', as the premise is no different, calling people anorexic because they are thin, which is still a diagnosis point for AN, is also the same as turning fatness into an ED, which is what much of the field still does. 

Bullying others using that premise acclimatizes your own mind to receive the same bullying. It's hard to refute, perpetrating it, means you rarely do this in your mind. Shouting fat people down means you've never heard nor allowed others to do so either.

In the moment your size is invoked it joins on to what you've been doing to others. The reaction you've seen in them and how you've felt about it.

That latter especially can be a doozy. Your own contempt becomes what you imagine is the same coming at you, and that can really sting.

The hate inside

Perhaps because the year is still new, it pays to remember just how ugly it is inside the head of your common or garden fat hater.

I know nothing more about Lena Dunham than I've heard from others. So I don't pretend to have anything to say on her. But oh the misogyny, it burns;

It’s not every day in the TV world of anorexic actresses with fake boobs that a woman with giant thighs, a sloppy backside and small breasts is compelled to show it all. It’s a boon for the out-of-shape,

Yeah, men don't make passes at girls who have assess right? A dig at thinz to boot, that's actually supposed to indicate a lack of partiality in your inchoate vitriol. Nice.

In fact, Adam as well as another man are now obsessed with her and can’t get enough of her blobby body. 

And this precious bit;

Interestingly, the gorgeous Marnie is the one who is now totally unlucky in love. Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to be smart, breathtakingly beautiful, nice and kind. Not when there are blobbies who are willing to take their clothes off in public constantly — even when they aren’t in character. 

Oh no, some fat bitch is punishing the good girl for not being as immoral as her ugly self and of course her ugly actions. We know who the good one is because she's good looking. It's all so simple!

I suppose in men this would be called homoerotic? Except it's more homofrigid. Sorry, but urgh the dead hand of this hate and it's stupidity sucks life out of the atmosphere.

What you have to ask yourself is where is this coming from? All this loathing and disgust that can be called up at an instant. Is this all the patriarchal brainwashing? Seems to me like it's just sitting there waiting to be ignited. What is the cause of it?

You look around and see people getting drunk i.e. getting away from themselves, to have a 'good time'. You hear about the sorry state of mental health, why oh why are so many suffering.

At some point you think, is walking around with all this inside you something to do with your despair? You look around at all the people who can at the drop of a hat turn people they may well know and love into a hate class.

A group of pariahs, because of their gut is bigger than yours, and you do have to wonder why it is such a surprise that an increasing number of us just want to leave this mindset behind......

Upscale Bulimia

You are not going to believe this. Actually, you probably are;

“Obesity is, if not the number one, right up there as the one of the most important health issues of our time. It’s not just a problem in the United States, it’s a worldwide issue. If it’s not controlled it will bankrupt the health-care system here and in other parts of the world.”

No, it's not that bit, that's just the (usual) set up. It's not even this bit;

Klein’s idea, Crothall said, was to use modified PEG (percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy) tubes used for feeding patients with cancer of the esophagus or other illnesses that prevent eating normally.

“His idea was if you add food [to a person’s stomach through a PEG tube], why can’t you subtract food,”

Though you can see that last line of that quote is getting there.

Here's the money shot;

The Aspire system starts with a patient undergoing a 10-minute procedure in which a gastrostomy tube is inserted down the throat and into and back out the belly. The patient is taught to empty the tube through a drain line that connects to the tube 20 minutes after a meal, a process that removes 40 percent to 60 percent of the consumed calories. The emptying process takes five minutes and is done two or three times per day, less after the patient reaches a maintenance phase.

That's right. Bulimia.

Via a reversal of the action of a feeding tube. I know this is bad, but I can't stop laughing. It's the mentality, it's like really bad satire.  Two or three times per day, in the maintenance phase! More before presumably. Good grief.

It seems they think, if we call this a "system" or "therapy" we won't notice.

Though bless them, they admit there's a "yuck factor" to all this. It's okay though market research indicates potential customers are okay with sucking the contents of their belly out via a tube. 

Smells are at a minimum and-it's done in private. Unlike the traditional shameful vomitty kind. This is an upscale improvement.

Have these people ever read any first hand testimonies of bulimics?

FA is criticized a lot for trying to point out the truth about how the calorie restriction model of weight loss quickly opens out into eating disorders. Well, at least 'innovators' like this are making it easier for us.

Not sympathetic

So it's a belated Happy New Year from me.

Better late than never.

I must admit that I feel a lot different from this time last year and not necessarily in a good way. It feels such a long time ago!

I feel strangely cantankerous about this but I feel like fresh change is afoot and that is to the good. So I'll accept it though it feels a bit cheesy, didn't last year.

One of the things I used to say way back when I started getting involved in the internet FA scene was, "Fat people just aren't sympathetic." Usually followed by, we're going to have to do for ourselves.

That's a bit like for the "party for one" thing Oprah used to go on about. Like some of her ideas, one cheered at the chutzpah, followed by an equal sense of doubt. That idea by the way was throw a spontaneous party for yourself, with music and dancing etc., Not the Bridget Jones weekend alcohol oblivion type for goodness sake.

Nevertheless, this must be overcome, fatz would sorta haveta throw a party for fatz and try to whoop it up. Rather than calling all allies, "We're oppressed/repressed". Basically we'll have to be our own allies.

What I meant was, not just did we not look sympathetic, for what that looks like, see Les Mis, we also did not behave"sympathetic" i.e. despite the fervent yearnings of some fat activists and along with everyone else, fat people simply are not committing suicide, having nervous breakdowns, getting strung out on hard drugs to the extent that would be expected from our status drop.

It should not need saying to those in the know that this is deeply offensive. Rather like a fat person engaging in physical activity without any interest in "weight loss", or not caring about being called fat.

Babbling aside, most of all, we are not sympa because...... well, we look grotesque (even to ourselves) behaving in ways that are perfectly understandable and would garner empathy if we we weren't fat.  

This poses a few possibilities.

We can just behave at a normal human level and look highly provocative, giving haters a chance to kick off wildly, not our fault, but we have to face it. We can behave ourselves i.e. behave better/repress ourselves.  Which plays into the hands of what we are trying to throw off. It keeps our consciousness under wraps and makes it hard to reconnect with that.

Or we can try something else altogether.

We can find a way to detoxify blame and try to lift the burden of it. Rather like we did and are doing with the meaning of the word "fat". Change the way we react to being held culpable, for our bodies, our health and so on. And just find ways to flagrantly not care whether we are blamed or not.

Foooooooooooooood

Appetite regulation. Food. What a mother eats affects the tastes of the child. Food. You are what you eat. Food. Epigenetics through diet. Food. What you feed your children. Food. What you feed yourself. Food.

Childhood obesity crisis. Food. Obesity crusade. Food. Food Addiction, ha, ha. Food. Fattening up.  FOOD. Fake Food. Real. Food. Toxic. Food. Supersize Me. Food. 5 a-day. Food.

Just. Stop. Eating. Food.

Food, food, food, food, food, food, ........................foooooood.

Food.

Dammit. Foooooood.

Once you step back from all this and you really begin to feel the senseless obsessiveness of it all. A base and oddly banal fetishization of food, accompanied by a peculiar absence of restraint, balance or feel for food.

This is of course supposed to be fat people's fixation. The routine 'confessional' -"Yes I am a fat because I'm greedy" mantra means you must confirm that it is indeed you.

As someone who's actually experienced an eating disorder. I assumed nothing could exceed that. But I was wrong because that was involuntary. What I mean by that is, not that I was causing/creating it, but that I was unaware that I was doing it or how.

I was actually caught up in the whirlwind of malfunctioning appetite and hunger signals, as much a witness as a participant. Or should I say those signals were overwrought, as indeed was my whole nervous system.

To the extent that I eventually began to experience symptoms akin to agoraphobia. There has been some discussion about exactly how to define that, so I'll just say, the atmosphere started to feel so intensely pressured, that it was pressing down on me from all directions. Such as I could not stand it and had to rush home.

It also felt like shame-though I was so replete with that-for many reasons, not just fat- it's hard to isolate that with any objectivity. It was like I was exposed, on display, stripped, revealed. I often couldn't complete my errand. Finding out what to do about that was key to eventually unravelling  the eating disorder.

Now as the mists of that are clearing. It's hard to escape the feeling that I just don't give a damn about food, in comparison to the endless overdose of bible thumping style food terror. We have enough to eat, isn't food awful? Or is it us? I really don't know.

Food as; medicine, morality, superiority/inferiority, neurotype, mental health index, intelligence, class, race, sex, gender performance, weapon, emotion, ideology, on and on it goes. At the same time. When you state food is a necessity of existence, there's argument.

The main vehicle for those concerned about 'obesity' is repression, of eating, of food, just like religions used to enforce repression of sex and sexuality. Their idea is that food is just too pleasurable or "hyperpalatable" yet bollocks word (I can't work out work out whether that's more embarrassing than writing "hedonic.") That is the cause of it's SIN.

So that leaves us with an explosion of all about FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD.

Not a coincidence.