Happy

Apart from the general quietness of this blog, I must admit, I've struggled to frame a response to Cancer Research UK's recent marketing bombshell, linking human bodies with cancer. The major reason is 'obesity' is a failed term and the framing of weight in terms of risk of weight is dubious and in the finish, irrelevant. Everyone knows the issue is can we reliably and permanently alter weight or not? Secondly, I'm struggling to grasp what if anything the information given could be pointing to.

Have a look for yourself, Adiposity and cancer at major anatomical sites: umbrella review of the literature. In the meanwhile, my attention was caught by an article on bulimia, as an illustration of a certain mindset.

On my way to that though, I just saw "I have prostate cancer. But I am happy". It stopped me in my tracks. I was largely indifferent to Monbiot, until this "slim chance" ugh puke [no pun intended]. After that fiasco, I linked him with irritation. Despite that, I wouldn't wish cancer on him or anyone else for that matter. Sad to say that's becoming a somewhat lofty standard.

Under the circs, it can't help but be instructive to hear from someone who actually has cancer;

It would be easy to curse my luck and start to ask “why me?”. I have never smoked and hardly drink; I have a ridiculously healthy diet and follow a severe fitness regime. I’m 20 or 30 years younger than most of the men I see in the waiting rooms. In other words, I would have had a lower risk of prostate cancer only if I had been female.

Straight in with the difference between risk and occurrence. Weight is obviously described in terms of "risk", "association" and "linked with", as that can be controlled through, ahm, statistical determinism.

Disassociation, that is being associated with low risk and being unlinked to that which is baaad cannot though protect you from occurrence. Though clearly it feels like it does. 

What about his reaction to the news, will it be what CR-UK are jonesing for?

And yet … I am happy. In fact, I’m happier than I was before my diagnosis. How can this be?

Is this "denial"?

The reason is that I’ve sought to apply the three principles which, I believe, sit at the heart of a good life.

Um, so deciding and seeking to control the way you feel can change what you feel. Let's see those principles;

The first is the most important: imagine how much worse it could be, rather than how much better. 

Oh I'm feeling that, count your blessings. No matter what people want to say or feel about weight, compared to real illness, it's an embarrassment.

The second principle is this: change what you can change, accept what you can’t.

Well, we all know the changes wrought by decades of attempts at calorie restriction induced weight loss [CRIWL].

The third principle is this: do not let fear rule your life.

Lols;

Fear hems us in, stops us from thinking clearly and prevents us from either challenging oppression or engaging calmly with the impersonal fates.

You don't say? Preach son! No matter what the news, or the intentions of others, we all have to carry on in the way that makes sense to us.

Suffice to say, the intention behind George's rules are the opposite of what crusaders wish to impose on those they consider too weighty,

There are, I believe, three steps to overcoming fear: name it, normalise it, socialise it. For too long, cancer has been locked in the drawer labelled Things We Don’t Talk About. When we call it the Big C, it becomes, as the term suggests, not smaller, but larger in our minds. He Who Must Not Be Named is diminished by being identified, and diminished further when he becomes a topic of daily conversation.

This is interesting, George is saying cancer needs to become less scary. Using cancer to make fear larger not only goes in the opposite direction, it re-invigorates fear toward sufferers."Margaret McCartney: Cancer patients should not be shamed";

....Cancer Research UK has gone large on its publicity campaign about obesity. The plain layout with warning label is reminiscent of a cigarette packet. In what Cancer Research UK itself describes as a “PR stunt,” the charity also created “fake cigarette packets with chips in to visually represent that obesity is the second biggest preventable cause of cancer after smoking.” The effect of this has been somewhat predictable. Some people with cancer have told me that they have felt blamed. Other overweight people have written on social media of how they felt shamed.

Predictable indeed.

Hard though to believe though it may seem, there was a time was a time when cancer had a stigma as great as HIV/AIDS in its earlier days. Doctors even took pity on families-leaving it off death certificates. Sufferers were hidden away by their relatives who often lied about their sickness, for fear of repercussions.

People finally going from shame to anger at the lack of progress is credited as part of the momentum for Richard Nixon's famous War on Cancer, which led to a lot of advances in the treatment of the disease.

It's taken a lot for cancer stigma to be lowered to the point of now and there's obviously further to go. Those who like to fake pathology and disease also like to enforce the reactions of their targets to their various machinations. 

They can't make that realistic either because everyone responds differently to actual disease, often confounding the expectations of fakers.