Body Promotion

So the British Plus Size Awards have been accused of promoting 'obesity'? From what I can see, they'd be more readily accused of 'promoting' whiteness, yahwn.

What happened to the much proffered notion that 'obesity' is separate from the 'obese' person? I've seen that accusation more than once from other fat commentators, bravely critical of people's self-acceptance. People's unselfconscious assertion of their continued and real existence, fat self recognition/acceptance of one's own fatness. A big fat consciousness.

They state with no little contempt, that we pathetically can't separate "our obesity" from ourselves. What's their response to this accusation that firmly reveals the indivisibility of fatness and person? Can slimness be seperated from a slim person and thinness from a thin person? Why not? Slim is to thin, what chubby is to slim. And chubby is to fat what thinness is to slim.

Don't think I'm trying to gain their precious agreement, but I offer this for their consideration.We may be picking up on this rather than expressing an internal cri de coeur. We may actually be listening to other people, unlike they, who are listening to their own, "promotion of slimness" mirroring slimmer fat phobes "promotion of obesity" in order to promote, to themselves, the idea of slimness as some kind of identity, akin to the traditional gent/lady thing. 

Try to remember the 'obesity' isn't and has never been fat people's. It really has little to do with us. The routine unrelenting imposition of it on us, requires us to read it. And we are not as stupid as your acceptance of your own assignment [though you of course dump it on us] leads you to assume, can't you tell that difference?

What is with this idea of promoting 'obesity' anyhow? You have to grasp just how alien and odd the very notion of it is. It so caught me unawares that it took me a while to place it. The best I could do was that it's an inversion of the idea that thin bodies in the media compel "young girls" to starve themselves.

An idea that's always been so utterly unconvincing that my mind discounted it without bothering with it. Like if you insisted: "Scooby Doo's POTUS." Despite moi, the idea has great currency, especially within the usual cod-feminism we're usually exposed to.

Women want to be thin/remain slim for its currency. Whilst there is a context of relatively stark cost-benefit, ultimately, they're not forced by anyone. Indeed, they're supporting the system because they feel they can win at it. White middle/upper class women most of all.

You can see this from the feminist response to fat acceptance. Rather than seeing it as a potential other front to the liberation of female consciousness. They see it as competition, feel jealous along with highly contemptuous. Above all they wish to kill it, without seeming to. They neither give a shit about the effect on fat women, or themselves.

That simply isn't convincingly about pure coercion.

If they were truly feminist and wanted out of this contrived marketplace, they'd feel more like myself. Yes, I realise how that sounds, but lack of eloquence etc., I basically feel, if women want to be thin/slim, let's get involved in the science/research/thought in how to bring that about and find the best possible way. Because we're freaking worth it. And this is about the desire to be slim right?

Ultimately I respect that extent of desire, and I don't care how 'trivial' that does or doesn't sound. It's not in and of itself harmful. And it just so happens that this leads to other things that definitely aren't trivial. It leads to 'nice'.

Women could have been in the forefront of this, propelled by our own desires, rather than majoring in being imprisoned in the shame of not being nice, important seeming person's, to make up for the trivialization of women. The truth is though that women could have and could still escape this, but prefer instead to play the game. Yes, I'm saying it.

That's why they don't care about the effectiveness of what we use to slim down any more than the ahem, patriarchy. 

Those who feel like winners, who feel like they can want to play-to win. And they'd rather win through privilege, position, and contrived scarcity, than find a way for everyone to access what they want, if they want it. If slimness was available at will, it would be something else with them. Otherwise why support class?

So bodies have to carry the can, so "we" don't have to discuss anything remotely uncomfortable. Whilst despising that about ourselves and shouting it at others, in this case fat people and our purportedly unique lack of "personal responsibility."

Which brings me to the way this weird charge is responded to, the now rote-like: "Fat people aren't necessarily unhealthy." "Fat people don't all get that way by sitting and eating x,y,z." You whaaa?

It's like watching two sets of dancers perform their own mutual idiom, one that makes little sense to me.

Food Revival

When people are into things, they are into those things. When people are into nothing in particular, they talk 'obesity'. There isn't one interest, inclination, field, topic, subject, vocation that anyone's into that is enriched by the 'obesity' monologue.

Take food deserts, there's a story to tell there......but......through the dehumanized narrative of 'obesity'? Doubt it.

Neither the shape nor the tone lends itself  producing fruitful indeed real discussion. It puts people on the defensive. And no, I don't mean fat people, or even slim people claiming to not eat what they eat, until "junk food tax" is mentioned, then suddenly, "Why should I have to suffer?"

I mean people can't seem to locate an honest historical flow-it's like 'obesity' shreds that because it is itself so inherently ahistorical. After all, it starts from denying the actions people actually take because it cannot acknowledge the usual results of those actions.

People ask in their usual disingenuous way: "Why doesn't fat acceptance fight against food deserts?" But to be honest I don't get any connection. It feels tacked on, similar to the insistence on talking about and supporting weight loss dieting.

Trying to get all fat people to support anything that ties them to a fat phobic agenda.

Whilst fat acceptance definitely has a race problem, this isn't intersectional fail. Nothing trades more on white privilege than 'obesity' bullshit. The idea that controlling your food intake is the answer to structural problems is apolitical mind pap.

If you want to talk about why people eat what they eat today, you're going to be talking about cultural pressures both internal and external, lived, memories, intra and extra-migration, then talk about that. Most of all, you'll be talking about people with love, with heart, with soul. Do you hear any of that in the ob monologue? Of course you don't. Why would casting people as disease to be run like objects be about the reality of human experience?

I was sensitized to calories in/out healthy eating from quite an early age. Certain changes in the modern Western model food environment became clearer. 

Supermarkets were retreating from urban centres to the outskirts and suburbs, led by the US. The fashion in business seemed to be highest profit margins.

What struck me over and again was despite Black social commentators, activists, professionals like social workers et al's frequent commentary on things like drugs, the sex trade, unemployment, liquor stores on every corner etc., I heard virtually nil about changes in the food environment.

The attitude to food seemed different, carefree almost. Despite the frequent pretense that middle class people "know more about nutrition."

Whilst I'm more aware of news agendas, I know if the talk had been half as intense, I would have picked up on something. Cultural memes turn up wherever there's a critical mass of cultural commentary. I found it truly odd that more prominent Black people did not seem to be giving voice to this or any potential implications etc., Whereas I, in my nervous earnest soul was concerned, for the future.

I was the kind of kid who felt like they died a little inside, every time I saw an abandoned sofa/fridge/vacuum cleaner. I kept thinking about the earth's resources-how could we carry on like this?

In those days I was more on board with the basis of 'obesity' crisis narrative, because, ci/co. I got that we needed to lessen weight through eating (less) and increase output-through activity. I also got at some early point, that this did not make sense as an individual thing.

Losses of certain things were seen in terms of working toward or against that calorie restriction/expenditure model. The streets used to be played in by children, then they were ceded to the motor car and children went indoors. Our swimming baths and other facilities were being shut down. We stopped being given cookery lessons at school. Provision of school dinners meals went from meals to a replication of fast food canteen.

Fast food outlets were liberally permitted by councils to be within spitting distance of schools. School playing fields were sold off. The "No ball games" sign appeared everywhere and were enforced more and more rigourously. Fast food restaurants appeared in hospitals. Everyone of them sent my anxiety a little higher.

I wasn't so much a food prude as a someone struggling with self imposed restriction. With my schizoid diet and ramped up eating disorder, I often ate there the same calorie dense food as others, along with my "healthy" diet. I was pragmatically self denying- if all this hadn't been there, that would be an assist for me.

In the end it was about intent. If you insist on lowering calories, every decision you make in regards to the food environment- becomes part of or against that process. That's intrinsic to such such a crude methodology. If you weren't prepared for it-completely understandable, it's crap. So pick another route or stop demanding people be slim via that route.

At the same time, industrial food continued penetrating seemingly every crevice. I still remember the shock of hearing that a certain FF giant, directly targeted research and endeavour at the youngest children. Many didn't know. By the time they did, it was old news to me and they still didn't care a whole lot. Though people are making a fuss about that now, most didn't And that includes middle class white people.

But no. By the time FF entering hospitals was lost-and to be fair some did protest-I realised I was done expecting this to be implimented. You cannot fight the will of those who have the voice. I was broken by their indifference, lol.

I really just like this piece. In just over 600 words, it tells me more about a basis of the formation of some food deserts-in this case rural, rather than urban. Than anything tacking itself onto the 'obesity' monologue. What is it? A restaurant (pre-)review.

A guy called Sean Sherman, who's a Native American and grew up on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota plans to open a restaurant featuring his interpretation of pre-colonial first nation cuisine. I was skeptical, is this another one of those return to Stone Age diet fantasies? But I read on and he set it in context of wider historical forces affecting many groups in US society and first nation people in particular.

Change happened as part of what was seen at the time as progress. A shared cultural capital, in this case food. You can see this on a larger scale with, especially US Fast food littering the globe.

When this began outside the US, people spoke in glowing terms about this food. It was it. The cat's whiskers. A shared global breaking of bread. There's a psychology that's not the usual nonsensical faddiction distraction.

In the case of the Sioux, [Sherman's restaurant is to be called "Sioux Chef"] they were not by choice farmers. That became an imposition of colonial conquest and reservation life. Before they were hunters, fishers and foragers.

Growing up on his grandfather's ranch on Pine Ridge, one of the nation's largest reservations, Sherman had regular access to fresh meat and produce. He also learned to hunt at an early age, getting his first shotgun when he was 8 years old. But the chef is quick to admit his upbringing was atypical. "I was lucky," he told Mic. "Most of the families around us relied on canned and 'commodity' foods. There was one grocery store on Pine Ridge, otherwise you had to go into Nebraska or somewhere in Rapid City [South Dakota.]."

That makes so much more sense doesn't it?

Sherman portrayal reminds me of something I complained about years ago, the negativity of the 'obese' monologue. It assaults people, rather than looking at their current skills, recognizing those and building on them. Not to mention those of their elders, parents, grand-parents which may have fallen by the wayside as things can. This could have been a point of exploration of revival and inter-generational communication.

He's spent the past six years traveling the country, however, researching Native American cuisine and learning traditional methods of drying meats, grinding corn and gathering herbs and spices. He's also been active in Minneapolis' local and organic food scene, something which figures prominently in his vision for the Sioux Chef.

Revival and yes, fashion, trends, joined with genuine enthusiasm and love, for food, for history, for culture and recovering what has been lost, what is valuable, for its own sake. 

No Death Penalty for Being Fat

No sooner did I write about the spectacle of a fat person losing weight, serving as inspo-porn for shamelessly empty-headed, does more construct-related grotesequerie rear its maggoty head.

diet or die

How about neither? Though one of them is guaranteed at some point or another, presenting them as two options together like that, I say no thanks to imposture. Even taking account of the sewer dwelling standards of 'obesity' bollocks, surely, surely this kind of taunting goes too far?

Apparently not. Its like an Invasion of the Brain Snatchers, sleep walking sickness. When it comes to 'obesity' the lights are on but people are switched off.

Nor is this any kind of warning. It's a direct threat. And to some, a promise. 

Again, I must point to this suppurating enigma at the heart of the crusade. Why insist weight must "prevented"/maintained or shifted via calorie manipulation rather than reversal/advance of the process (or processes) that led the body to attaining its size?

Why this route and this route alone?

What's so special, so sacred about it? The only other thing there must only be one thing of is god. Are you looking for a god bothering placeholder to believe in? Do you need a sense of certainty you feel is missing in your life? Do you want to return to a golden age of about 30 years ago? Or do you feel the need to unite with your fellow man on something you can all agree on? Why don't you buy something or get a real religion?

Fat people aren't yours. We aren't like a real life puppet show you can feel the frisson of excitement of staring into our eyes to see your handiwork register. We aren't your project.

There are reams and reams of every known product or service in an economy of any sophistication. Virtual duplication where things of the same kind differ barely, if at all. Anything to express choice even when its somewhat illusory. That's advertised as the shining path desire expresses itself through.

Can't find what you "want" because of the absence of some microscopic must-have?

Someone with a commercial interest will run around arms flapping like that really matters. Summon the best minds available on it. Inevitably someone comes up with something.... 

But the notion, that maybe there could possibly be another way of altering body composition and that is sacrilege. Entitled, spoilt, just for once, take responsibility, one strike and you're out.

You can see the displacement.

Because this of all places is really the place to draw the line. Whilst you put pressure on people to save you, healthcare, the earth, whatever. Consumer society is really tussling with it's own excesses. It just doesn't want to face that. Doesn't want the party to stop. That surfaces where no social graces are extended though. And so will remain until people face their own feelings about their own behaviour.

Like millions of others, I dieted, not because it made sense for most of the time I was doing it. I restricted because it was the only option to fulfill my stubborn aim. If I'd had an actual way, a better option or options I would have used those instead. Dieting only exists because there's nothing else and nothing coming. It is so shit that it needs to be the only game in town.

But the imposition of it being the only way has grown around the need many have for the idea of one way or the highway. Not the other way around.

It's not just that proto-anorexia is the seen as the way, the truth and the light, the saviour of all mankind, if not civilization as we know it. It's that its patiently such a useless, ugly mess. Everyone dreads and detests it. Contrary to the slimming related psycho-drivel, that's physiologically, not psychologically based.

Yes, I do know that mind is brain and brain is just a body part. I'm saying directly that this worldwide aversion is not a mental decision, it is the body's reaction sent to the mind to then be voiced.

In fact, our conscious minds seem rather susceptible to the merest suggestion of dietary restriction. Fasting, notions of clean eating, cleansing anorexia etc.,  is actually rather attractive to our minds.

Thin people are able to be the most vocal about this visceral disdain for obvious reasons. The centrality of energy to our existence makes our bodies recoil from being cut off from what sustains existence, for no good reason. 

Yet this is the way decided upon, no matter the upheaval, the invasiveness, the wastefulness, the,  jealousy, resentment, hate, disorder, the collateral damage and the continued failure this generates.

I'd be lying if I said I cared overly right this minute. All I know is this makes it clear that "losing weight" isn't the object.  It's about, this, the way it is now and keeping it that way for as long as possible.

This mess in and of itself is fulfilling a function to those invested in it. 

That's freakish and truly embarrassing so, the same old excuses come thick (yes) and fast. 

It's about morality, personal responsibility. Why then wouldn't say the medical profession object to treating genocidal dictators, serial killers, child molesters first? People can be cynical about lawyers, but they regularly air the possibility of successfully defending the potentially guilty and convicting the potentially innocent.

Imagine the potential qualms about saving the health, the life of someone who has or would go on to kill or use that health to hurt and damage others?

D'you not think they might start with them before they got to mere fatness? What better way to impose a non-judicial death penalty than by letting them die from whatever bodily process medics can leave to just keep going where it may.

Oh what's the matter, is that barbaric? Are you against capital punishment? But its just capital for fat people isn't it?

One of the women in the above links, Jennifer Bodek had a brother die when she was 15, followed her mother at 18. Do people need to die because of what may be have been triggered by grief? And no, that's not a cue to turn hate into pity.

And what about weight that's been triggered partly or wholly by crimes committed against their bodies? They are to be ultimately accountable in a way those who committed crimes against them will not? Is that the morality being referred to?

Then there's the towering: "Fat people are ugly."

Have you seen disease in action? Plagues, pustulence, body disrupting bacteria? It's not pretty. The subtle: "Fat people smell." Medical professionals examine folks piss and shit, tend to suppurating wounds, pus filled lumps, encounter necrotic stench. 

Never remotely convincing. A lazy pisspoor effort all round. You get an F.....for fail.

Nor is it the case that there are no leads. It doesn't surprise me that adjusting something like insulin levels can not only undermine excess hunger triggering, but can also increase the body's use of energy.

You know they can block the onset of precious puberty?

How can that be oh so much harder than at the very least stalling adipogenesis for those people who are just relentlessly and aggressively gaining? Is fatty tissue acquisition really more complex than changing shape, internal organs, gaining actual parts and features you didn't have before and so forth?

Intractable depression is a metabolic problem, so being able to adjust it has the potential to be a treatment pathway for various neurosis as well as heart disease which is connected to depression and anxiety disorders. And no, not because depression makes you lazy.

My guess is that if your depression seriously abates due to diet and exercise, you didn't have it. It's effectively self diagnosed in the main. 

Even anorexia, in my view, should be reversed rather than making anorexics impersonate hyperphagia, that in its way is a cruel and unnecessary shock to their state of mind. Forcing them to be the battleground for their neurosis and their will.

And the two are intertwined, reversal and advance of weight have the same basis. Denial of alternatives to reversing weight has meant the death penalty for other than fat people.

And what about that? Wasn't support for it supposed to be unspeakably primitive and bigoted? I always wondered whether support for that-once unashamedly rock solid- ebbed through shaming or the progress of rational argument-which are what again? It's wrong for the state to kill etc.,

It's odd to see so many of those quick to issue a death penalty for being fat, are the same vociferous shamers of anyone supporting it for the most heinous of crimes. I can understand not recognising the form of something in another context, we all have that in some way or another-but with something so supposedly heartfelt, you'd think some part of the mind would recognize this intellectual faux pas.

Begs the question, does there always have to be something a person can do-or in this case be-that means they deserve to forfeit their life? And if that isn't the most unspeakable things, does that impulse inevitably drift elsewhere? In this case, merely an unpoliced area? Literally, fatness has become a criminal justice issue, without either criminality or justice. 

Some kind of thwarted urge to punish the guilty is at work here. Yet it is those same minds that felt the urge to stymie that in the first place.What gives"anti-death penalty" advocates? Did you know your deep ethic beliefs were shallow and that really, you're just a person who believes what's fashionable amongst your class?

That you're really moved according to what is and isn't shameful to those of your class who can really think (or dominate). Do you truly believe in anything at all? Do any of us? Or is it a particular state of being?

No more do evil acts decide the imposition of the ultimate penalty, but merely what's unguarded. And you wonder why people often default to the on the defensive even when they're in the wrong? Who can blame them? When a simple and consistent mea culpa can bring you the most capital of punishments?

I cannot support the DP, apart from directly, there's the inevitable race/class bias. Even I though I have had cause to wonder whether my objection is based ultimately on morality or squeamishness.

But if I was to change my mind, it would not be mere slimness that inspired a change, that's for sure.

No death penalty for being fat.

*Terri Smith

Multi-Component Lifestyle Management

Simon Stevens, current head of NHS England has a five year plan for that arm of the National Health Service. High on the agenda of this epic fantasy word salad is;

...the prevention, identification, assessment and management of overweight and obesity in adults and children.

Hang on a minute.'Obesity' [type 2 diabetes] is costing the NHS "too much." In order to save money, it must spend more with a failed system that fat people have thus far mostly paid for out of our own pockets? Clearly "the costs of obesity"= how much money will flow into this area, away from others.

I knew once it was clear that enough fat people had seen through dieting, we'd be drawn into the mainstream fold. We did the dieting ourselves and this kind of move demonstrates this. I used to wonder why does anything to do with health seem to spring from the healthcare system, yet somehow fat people pay for something that is supposed to be a health issue?

Not sure whether the (nominal) notion is, close pressure of observation will be a key factor in slimming success. Or whether sufficient numbers of people who lean more towards slimness have grown plump or what to give the appearance of success. Have you noticed the way slimming companies success stories have gone more from fattest to plump?

No matter the obvious failure of calorie manipulation, the crusade keeps rolling on, regardless. Erasing our actions is part of the idea that your size is your discipline.  How will they dress this old rope? GP's must spot all 'overweights' and 'obeses' and direct us to;

..effective multi-component lifestyle weight management services for adults who are overweight or obese (aged 18 and over). ....weight management programmes, courses, clubs or groups that aim to change someone’s behaviour to reduce their energy intake and encourage them to be physically active.

Like this "obesity algorithm"? Basically the same disordered calories in/out based practices that have led us here, sometimes dubbed "behavioural." It's like breathing is "behaviour" because you can hold your breath. The influence of conscious control proves its fully under your conscious control right? The supposed pathway of savings is by helping to;

reduce the risk of the main diseases associated with obesity, for example: coronary heart disease, stroke, hypertension, osteoarthritis, type 2 diabetes and various cancers (endometrial, breast, kidney and colon).

None of which are not associated with a BMI of under 25, no matter the wishful thinking. Does this include the cost of the assault of drugs and surgery on the body, which we know are substantial.

The focus is on lifestyle weight management programmes that:

• accept self-referrals or referrals from health or social care practitioners
• are provided by the public, private or voluntary sector
• are based in the community, workplaces, primary care or online.

We're to be harrassed wherever we go are we?

My first impulse to diet was about aged 7. It represented one of my first conscious, autonomous expressions of total initiative. As a child, you get used to being told what to do all the time, to being micromanaged. Changing my weight through calorie restriction, was my first attempt to design and execute a plan all by myself. With no outside input.

That was a very long time ago. But one thing hasn't changed is that this isn't about the involvement of others, it's about me and my efforts. I've never been to a diet club in my life and wouldn't dream of it. The idea has zero appeal.

What I signed up for-aged 7, till I crashed and burned years later was not at the behest of others, nor with their interference and prying even if that's called creepily "support."

And I think you'll find that's a general unspoken truth about dieting. Its rictus grip over the public imagination is to do with the prospect of avoiding doctors other medical professionals and any other health police. It's something you can do on your own. Everyone yearns to have a means to release the doctor within.

Now whilst I know diets don't work-from personal experience and well as observation. The idea of health in our own hands does.

And I want, we all want more of it, not less. More ways to change, restore alter the functioning of ourselves and our bodies. Marginalizing fat people from healthcare, has edged the medical profession out of the centre of my healthcare. Yes, I'm relatively healthy as in free of disease and that is a privilege.

But that's as it should be in my view. I don't share this desire for well people to keep going to the doctor, no matter the excuse. To me, that's for sick people. That drift is interesting, but I said no to religion and I repeat, my doctor is not my priest, end of story.

I'm even less inclined than ever having seen the sainted medical profession in its full ruthless inglory. As for those who've spent decades ragging fat people, looking down their nose at us can just skip on. I'm disinclined to be a vehicle for them to be rewarded for it.

Their assistance has never and will never be required for me.

So the NHS can skip trying to take hold of my life, unless I request it because its mine. I do not need to be named, to be categorized, told my experience or dictated to in anyway, thanks. And I say that as someone who believes in collective endeavour.

You do not own me. I am not your servant and no bullshit pre-text will allow me to knowingly give up the autonomy that was my first drive to alter my size.

The Obese Entry Point

For a crusade trading so long on pointing out indolence, the 'obesity' crusade is remarkably fond of re-cycling it's old tat. Calorie restriction dieting, lifestyle change/choice, lifestyle/weight management. Exercise, activity, active lifestyle, health, all referring to the same.

At least there, bothering to alter terms. Probably because the false consciousness was being rumbled. 

Not yet with a current favourite, invoking terrorism.

"Obesity is a bigger cost for Britain than war and terror." 20 November 2014 

Really? That's funny because;

"Obesity more dangerous than terrorism: experts. The Age- 25 February 2008

"Obesity, bigger threat than terrorism?" CBS- 1 March 2006

The guardian itself; [US] "Obesity epidemic, bigger threat than terrorism?" 3 March 2006

Now this terrible scourge....................... of hackdrivel has caught up with poor old Blighty. 'Twas inevitable. There's been a lumbering up to this one as crude as the bluntest filled-with-visceral-horror stereotype of a fat person on the move.

Most of the above is attributed to one Richard Carmona, an ex-US surgeon general. He exited his post on 31 July 2007. All this was so compelling that it took a while for the press to get excited. Perhaps they knew b/s when they smelt it?

In the end though, the press give the public co-ordinated sockpuppets who make approving noises whenever this propaganda appears what they want-traffic and all that. [I'm increasingly suspicious of BTL comments on these adipocalypse puff pieces.]

So what are we to make of this report excuse for passing the constipated matter that is this torrid bumpf? I'm still deciding whether its worth wading through a 2MB pdf re-hash that I'm guessing isn't dominated by graphics.

It says it has evidence for 44 interventions, into the lives of people out of 70 something they considered *gulp*, being acceptable. Eurgh.When a person has to do that many things to do something your body does automatically, you know it's about the approach, the intervention/s. 

Self named a "discussion paper", it majors on the usual fat people as other. A cost burden- though by that same posit, slim people could be deemed other and a cost to fat/ter people.

Not right now though, the establishment is leading this "discussion" [euphemism for not one]. And though the evidence is that men in many countries, men tend to have a more uniform spread of weight across class, than women, [though we're continually told they're making inroads.]

This adds up to slimness as default human. What do all these f-a-t establishment figures think whilst going along with this? Do they think they aren't fat? Is their fatness somehow obviated by wealth/influence? Does the old saying "You can never be to rich or too thin" need a re-work to something like "You can never truly be an 'obese' if you're rich?"/ "The 'obese' mask cannot rest on the face of a rich man?"

A lot of the powers that be and their cronies are receiving more and more money for this old rope.  'obese' is really just an entry point for other things. Consisting increasingly in sticking its nose in your beeswax, ordering you around, telling you exactly how to live and what to do with your free time. What am I talking about "free time" do you think you have any?

Time belongs to the man! What would Einstein say?

Invasive lifestyle management, mental re-adjustment-to sustain anorexic behaviours, finally admitted to require jettisoning the mental drain that was the 'obese' persona imposed on fat people. "We're all be 'obese' by the year 20 whatever" now reveals a new undercurrent of meaning. Wishful thinking.

When people are 'obese' they can lose their sense of self. They will take the kind of orders they otherwise wouldn't dream of. If you're goal was power, would you be "incentivized" to turn society's weight around? 'Obeses' are ideal citizenry, trusting, docile, obedient-grateful.

It's funny isn't it? We went along with we must become slim. Slim people went along with being part of enforcing this. And now we may all go down together tethered to this boat. 

Pills, anti-seizure meds, operations to remove stomachs. Assessing, controlling people's lives to a tee from cradle to grave, with the threat of this or death penalty. By the time people see through this, goodness knows how much they'll have made away with. Or what will be left of our sense of self or freedom or even healthcare.

PTB are like petty criminals, opportunist to a fault.

Now when you hear "obesity costs", you know you're hearing the kind of cash they intend to drain out of healthcare in order to "save" healthcare expenditure or even whole systems. The NHS is having trouble not because of political re-arranging with every change of government, or the inflexible practise of a stiff medical hierarchy, but because too many of us are ovah-whait;

The UK spends less than £638m a year on obesity prevention programmes – about 1% of the social cost, the study finds.

That much? I wonder what on? Certainly not to find out ways of say blocking people's bodies from scaling whatever highest heights they happen to be triggered into. Or simply trying to stabilise people's weight, rather than operate and remove their organs, under the ransom of continued gain and/or actual health problems.

Despite there already being more leads than many imagine. Its like any "sin", the lack of answer is not a reading of the state of our knowledge, it's rough justice for the "sinners."

As I always said, there is no objective evidence that this particular crusade is that invested in reducing people's weight. It's more into setting up the idea that your life is not your own. Starting with casting bodies as disease and de-animating fat people, defining us as non-sentient fat suits.

Whether this ownership comes through religion, politics or healthcare? Who cares? The same classes run them all-till they lose power. Fat people are simply a current conduit for this kind of impulse.

So, we ought to be pissing away more resources even more uselessly down the drain? And the people like these report writers, medical professionals, nutritionists, psychiatrists, social workers everyone's out for a bit of this, can get paid to tell us to do what we've already done under our own initiative, in the guise "personal responsibility."

 Now laughable including taking pills and being operated on to reduce the function of your functioning body. Since when is the surgery arm of the medical machine "personal"?

Despite no evidence of dead fat bodies littering the streets, nor even of life expectancy regressing a la their ceaseless so-called predictions.

Ye GADs

Something I did to relieve myself of a very trying eating disorder-hyperphagia nervosa (HN) or over functioning hunger/appetite mechanisms-was to (what I called) "train my nervous system down." To retrain it from hyperactive to calm.

First at rest, later in action. This was a slow process where I first trained myself to be physically and mentally calmer whilst still. The next step was to transfer as much of this learned state of calm as I could to motion.

I was amused to find out that this reference to the tension in your nervous system, has been coined; generalized anxiety disorder [GAD], since 1980 apparently! Typical of psyche professionals turning the whole world into a psyche ward.

What I saw as merely part of a condition, is named as a "disorder" in its  own right. Boo hoo.

This kind of thing is one of many reasons why 'obesity' isn't compatible with modern society's trends. It's not just that it is demanded that you prioritize other people's offense with your existence/physique, it's that you have to dry their tears over something you barely have time to take seriously.

Whilst being accused of being the ones too incontinent to stop considering every little thing an illness-remember critique of the AMA's "obesity is disease" as if we personally said it was.

We of course didn't.

Bricked In

Larry Evans is losing weight. He started his calorie restriction, exercise regime at 800lbs/362kgs. He's got down to at least 650lbs/254kgs. I wish him and his "team" the absolute best. May they get where they need to get, stay there and be healthy hale and hearty.

One thing I can't stand is the cheerleading chorus who are valorizing his situation and its sub-biggest loser style talk of jouneigh. Someone even claimed this was in some way heroic. Let's make something clear, this kind ofstruggle is the product of deliberate policy - trapping fat people into a the suffocating house arrest of calorie restriction with exercise bulimia- themselves too.

From the start of the 'obesity' crusade, if not before, fat people have been bricked-in to a calorie restriction/virtual starvation diet or die scenario, using contrived but acute discomfort, pain and anguish to hold us in.

Just as surely as a one strike and you're out life-sentence. And similarly, it doesn't give a damn about the costs to those unfortunate enough to be metabolic outliers. In fact, it has no problem seeing them perish if that's a part of what's going on with them.

It should be palpably disgusting that societies for the last 4 or more decades have openly said to fat people, "You're dying and that's okay." Luckily for us, it's not up to what society wants, still, that thought counts. Any nation that thinks people ought to die because of their weight or size is messed up. There's no one thin enough for me to declare their lives worthless and I cannot imagine what would get me to go along with such a notion.

It's the extent of conviction that if fat people just can't escape the relentless pursuit of everyone imposing lifestyle anorexia on us, or if it is too intolerable to be fat we will swap the stigma of fatness for the hunger of anorexia and exercise bulimia, our bodies will succumb and we'll all be okay.

We shouldn't have to be forced into "punishment" because of the displaced urges of others.  The urge to see a stocism in the face of any level of discomfort, others feel happy to shirk but not to let go of the idea of. Instead of looking to inflict pain on their own selves, they feel entitled to foist this repellent urge on those they feel its in their power and privilege to-fat people.

Hardly impressive.

Like an earthquake where the earth gives way beneath your feet, cue a manic scramble to climb out before it gives way again and you are lost to the world. That is what you are seeing, someone trying to claw their way out of a trap set by others.

It's not simply about size, it's  feeling trapped. It is well known that this can be a decisive factor in suicide. People dancing around the spectacle of this suffocation does not enoble them. Fat people are not inspirational porn.

There is nothing heroic inspiring or uplifting about witnessing the product of this mindwarp. Enjoyment here is, tawdry and shabby.  No-one, let alone a person of 800lbs should have to starve and lift weights purely to lose weight. If people wish to do those things, good luck to them, but it should be a choice for its own sake or other benefits like conditioning, not to expend energy as penitence at the imposition of fanaticism.

Calorie restricting your way to weight loss is a stupid embarrassment. The halo of slimness may be shining in these people's eyes, but your mind knows. Dieters often feel ashamed, guilty and silly. Dieting is stupid, self destructive and above all, utterly absurd. Unless you are honest enough to admit how risible it all is-even if you are going to do it inspite of that.

I say to metabolic researchers, it's long overdue that you get on and find a proper lever to reversing and advancing weight. You must be able to find at least one, there are probably many. Every day people like Larry have to take this route, risking the potential for their body to exhibit a powerful rebound manoeuvre that could leave them worse off than when they started, is a day you've failed.

Whether its people having tumours removed, or those losing their hunger, metabolic courses need to be altered in either direction and that should be obvious.

[And no, I don't see people like Larry as any less "deserving" of this than anyone else and nor should those who have the obviously low threshold for discomfort have anything to say about that.]

Hypothalamic Obesity

Things have been rather eerie lately. Turning a corner and walking into some unseen land that has uncannily familiar themes.

I've found it strangely chastening to read experiences I know many can relate to outside the straitjacketing imposition of the 'obesity' narrative. Like, this is what we are not hearing, despite never hearing anything but "obesity, obesity, obesity."

The haunting feeling partly comes from the suffering of children. It feels a little like gatecrashing someone else's crisis. Reporting the shock of fellow feeling and identification feels like I'm subverting their desperate situations to my own purpose. These stories are undoubtedly worth reading in and of themselves. 

It started by reading an article by Robert Lustig-yep the sugar is poison and responsible for teh "obesity epidemic" guy. It's about something called "Hypothalamic Obesity." Things got a bit too real in a different way, when I also tripped over a parent blogging of her young daughter's experience with this condition.

I don't doubt many others will relate to some of it too, despite not having had hyperphagic mayhem having a prize fight in your brain. I'm sure despair in the face of upward gain, in the face of trying so hard to prevent and reverse weight will strike a chord with many. 

Hypothalamic obesity is when a tumour on the hypothalamus-an endocrinal gland located on the underside of the brain-is removed and this trauma to the hypothalamus provokes aggressive and speedy weight gain and fatness. We're talking relentless weekly if not daily gain.

The difference between this 'obesity' and common or garden kind is, it's accepted as real. It has a distinct and objectively observable trigger or starting point, so though it wouldn't be impossible to deny, it would be harder to.

It cannot be cast as an elective choice of the individual and that its accompanying hyperphagia-heightened and/or excessive hunger signalling, is an actual imbalance in the body, rather than subject to being twisted into such as "food addiction", emotional disturbance, neurosis etc.,

There is an insistence that this hypothalamic obesity [HyOb] is marked out from other 'obesity' by being resistant to weight loss diet and exercise. Now anyone in tune with reality will note that this is not only unconvincing on its face its not true in reality either.  

It's marked by its trigger-tumour removal (occasionally the tumour itself) and speed of gain. That speed is probably a sign of what makes it even more intractable that just being fat. The hyperphagia that accompanies it isn't felt to be commensurate with fuelling such speed of gain. The body is storing energy at a high rate.

When Hunger Isn't Working

I hesitate to use this experience for the purposes of illustration. But, in view of the lack of real representation of what its like to have hyperphagia nervosa-HN, also called compulsive eating disorder-CED. I felt moved to point to a rare occasion where something like it appears.

What stunned me most in the story of 12 year old Landon Jones and his year long loss of hunger and thirst was this;

The soundtrack of daily life in the Jones household is a persistent mantra that Michael and Debbie intone for their 12-year-old son, Landon.
Take a bite.
Take a bite.
Take a bite.
Take a drink.
Take a drink.
Take a bite.
These parents have been forced to jabber away like this in the last year because of their son's mysterious illness: He lacks all impulse to eat or drink. And he might be the only person in the world burdened with this bizarre medical condition.
Michael, 43, who prods most often, is a desperate father. He's become a verbal robot in a grim campaign to keep his boy fed.
Take a bite.
Take a bite.
Take a drink.

That was the exact nature of the mantra in my head, when I had HN, except it was to remind myself not to eat. It's basically, the conscious mind replacing stop or in Landon's case, his parents (conscious) direction to start eating. And it is of the things I most remember about having a faulty hunger drive.

Again, I apologize if this seems crass but it leapt out at me more than any representation of having an hyperphagic disorder, ever remotely has. Certainly, nothing I've heard formalized by the eating disorders crowd has felt this real ever.

I remember once trying to compare this to when Lisa and Bart nagging and begging their parents for something the; please, please, please, please....... Except that endless nagging is an impulse inside your head. You have to counter that with the more conscious part of your mind. And at other times, you actively have to almost remind yourself not to eat, or you'll find yourself eating, because your hunger is open-ended.

In the hunger mechanism has shifted outside little Landon's as he has the problem in reverse. His hunger mechanism has either ceased to function, or is being blocked or overcome by something. He not only doesn't feel like eating, it feels almost like an assault. Just as being prevented from eating can feel like an assault to someone who's hunger is hyperactive.

His parents have become the conscious directive replacing the lack of inner drive. His father tells how they've taken it upon themselves to research and study the problem as he is said to be the only known case.

He said he's narrowed it down to the hypothalamus as the only part of the body that can take away thirst [which he's also lost]- as many things can undermine/block hunger.