Aftermath Part 1
There are tons of great responses to our appearance on the Morning Show with Mike and Juliet. And I’m glad a lot of them are challenging what I thought was the most ridiculous statement on the show, MeMe Roth’s assertion that there would be “public outrage” if we were going online saying that “thin is in.” From Big Fat Delicious:
Ummm, what planet are you living on? Aren’t we bombarded every fucking day of our lives with the fact that thin is healthy, beautiful, desirable, etc, etc, etc and that TEH FATZ is deadly, ugly, stupid, gluttonous, lazy, etc, etc, etc? If it’s so fucking acceptable to be fat in this world, I sure as hell haven’t seen it much.
Here is another response to the show, from Ottermatic:
The fact that [Ms. Roth] includes the intersection between fat acceptance and feminism as examples of around-the-bendness is pretty strong evidence that her problem is less with health and more with these uppity fat bitches daring to oppose the hegemony of beauty standards.
This tells me that Fat Acceptance as a movement has some serious potential to be about more than just fat, but can serve as a platform on which all nonconforming bodies can stand and shout “We love our bodies” until the walls come down.
Big Fat Blog is doing a blow-by-blow analysis of the show, and you can find part one here, including this rebuttal to one of the statistics given on the show:
“With obesity, we lose 800 lives every day.”: Totally false. That equals 292,000 per year. But there’s no study I’ve seen that has that number. In fact, you might recall that the CDC erred with their original estimate… by 14 times. The number of deaths attributable to fat each year is 25,814 – or 70 per day if you want to be dramatic. Roth totally fabricated this and wasn’t called out by anyone.
Possibly the funniest reaction is the new site for The Health Institute of Nutrition (or THIN). Here’s what they have to say about fat bloggers:
The two biggest sources of unsupervised education opportunities for your children—cable television and the internet—have been completely taken over by a veritable army of women who will tell them it’s OK not to hate yourself if you’re overweight. What’s more, they don’t want other people to hate fat people, either.
All that stands in the way of this dangerously subversive group is the fashion industry, the pharmaceutical companies, the weight loss industry, the carefully cultivated self-loathing of fat people themselves, and ten thousand years of patriarchal thinking. How can our lovingly entrenched ideas about health and beauty hope to survive the onslaught from the well-organized “bloggers” of the so-called “Fatosphere”?
Only be getting organized ourselves. Hard as it may be to believe, there are decent, fat-fearing folks out there who still believe in the power of a Size 0 waist. The problem is that these people are scattered all over the place: in magazines, in tabloid newspapers, at fashion shows, on billboards, on TV, teaching your children in school, writing romantic comedies, administering medical care, designing toys for girls, coming up with and selling great new drugs… how can all these diverse individuals representing “Fat Avoidance” possibly come together into a single unified force?
And here’s a very touching comment from Tammy on Rachel’s blog that makes me so happy we were on the show.
I just saw your interview on the Morning Show. I can’t believe what I just heard. I recently lost 32 pounds (from September 1st) and have been under a doctor’s care since I lost the weight. I am severely anemic, depressed, abnormal menstrual periods and have had two colds. I never thought I could be starving myself to death! I am 49 years old, 5?5 and weigh 149 lbs. I weigh myself no less than five times a day. I didn’t realize I had an eating disorder. I am going to get help! Thank you!
Wow, is all I can say to that.
MeMe Roth actually sent me a very gracious e-mail today, and I know we do have some common ground. I’m sure she’d agree with me that we should work to change the farm bill to subsidize fruits and vegetables rather than corn (which results in the ubiquity of high-fructose corn syrup, which Michael Pollan ties directly to the increase in childhood obesity). We should make produce more widely and cheaply available. I am also in favor of requiring restaurants to post nutrition information, and banning the advertising of junk food to children.
I am also in favor of maintaining a healthy lifestyle (and modeling it for the children in our lives). However, I think that a healthy lifestyle begins, as I said on the show, with self-esteem. (In a post-show conversation, Dr. Ashton agreed with me, mentioning that she never, never criticizes her daughter’s body or criticizes her own body in her daughter’s presence; instead, she praises her athletic daughter for her muscles and her athletic abilities.) Demonizing fat and fat people, using fearmongering to shame people into weight loss, insisting that heavy people can’t be beautiful, ignoring the link between today’s beauty ideals and feminism, and using inaccurate data is not an effective approach.
And a big fat thank you to Petulant for getting the clips on YouTube, to the mighty Kymm and the fabulous Lara for being in the audience, and to our awesome husbands who were both so proud and supportive. Also, I can’t say enough great things about Rachel. Getting to meet her in person for the first time was was a definite highlight of the trip. (Ian, on the way to our hotel: “By the way, where does Rachel live?” Me: “Um… in the Internet?”) She was so prepared and articulate, and her story is so inspiring, that it took the pressure off me in a big way.
Oh, and I should mention that while the Morning Show took great care of us, the producers were excellent and put us at ease, and everyone from our towncar driver to our hair and makeup people were wonderful—they put both our hotel reservations in our husband’s names. What’s up with that?! At least the sign at the airport had my name on it (if you click through to my Flickr photos, you can see for yourself).
Anyway, I’m sure there will be more responses and lots more to say… so stay tuned!
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Fat Positive, Fatism, Feminism, Media, Meta, Personal, TV
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Love, love, love that photo.
Thanks for all these links – going to dive in and read.
Yaay! I didn’t get to see the show but I am so thrilled for you guys.
Who are these THIN bitches? Seriously. “The power of a size 0 waist?” What about the power of loving yourself?
What about the power to stand up to ‘tards who encourage eating disorders and obsession?
Ok, pass me a straw, I want some!
That post from the THIN site was seriously funny. I think I don’t realize how mean people can really cause damage…I was walking down the sidewalk in college and had just started my freshman 60 so my jeans were a little tight. Some assholes drove by and said “uh.. you’re fat”. they said it like they were doing me a favor. Assholes. That moment is burned in my brain and god love my 150 lbs 6 ft 4 inch husband for wanting to hunt them down and kill them.
Ok, that was totally off subject, not pass me a straw!
Bellesouth,
THIN is satire : )
Absolutely fantastic! I love that we’re getting such good reactions and that you two did so damn well on that interview. I hope you all the best!
Who are these THIN bitches?
Dang, that didn’t take long.
I’m finding the extra context you and Rachel give for the doctor to be interesting. I’m highly unimpressed with her performance on the show — she said things that were not only misleading but potentially harmful — but it’s interesting if, like you two, she wasn’t given adequate preparation or time to get her point across. (Still, she’s a professional and should get it together.)
Not so much with MeMe. The fact that she DOES theoretically agree with us on the “health” part of “health at every size” just makes it all the more infuriating that she insisted on responding to the fatosphere she invented — the one that “glorifies obesity” — instead of the one that actually
existslives in the Internet.“(Ian, on the way to our hotel: “By the way, where does Rachel live?” Me: “Um… in the Internet?”) “”
*ROFL*
“they put both our hotel reservations in our husband’s names.”
I told you — it’s Fox! Dun Dun DUNNNN
“I’m sure she’d agree with me that we should work to change the farm bill to subsidize fruits and vegetables rather than corn (which results in the ubiquity of high-fructose corn syrup, which Michael Pollan ties directly to the increase in childhood obesity).”
And J. Eric Oliver totally disputes in his Fat Politics book. It’s something like 0.01 percent of corn produced goes to make HFCS.
And HFCS doesn’t make people fat. Genetics and weight-loss diets do.
Well, that’s interesting. We should definitely have a conversaton about HFCS at some point; I haven’t read J. Eric Oliver’s book!
There may be hope for Meme yet. I dont believe im saying this, but im an optomist.
Maybe she genuinely does want to help people and might realise that she’s been misguided all along.
…
My few thoughs from this episode:
1. How cute is your haircut! Total opposite of the mushroom… I could not love it more.
2. Dang, skippy, but Ian is tall.
3. Rachel is so adorable. I’m over using the cute, but she is just. so. cute!
4. Your dress at the gallery show (previous photos in flickr) is rad.
5. You guys looked and sounded great, your message was concise, clear and reasoned! Unlike other guests.
Michele
optimist, but not when it comes to my spelling.
The thing I didn’t like about Oliver’s book is that he blames the increased numbers of fat people in America on snacking! Similar to Stearns’ Fat History. Where is the book that will examine the link between weight-loss dieting and more fat people? I want to read it.
Also– Mo, you said you lowered your cholesterol by 25 points last year. Would you pretty please share what you did to achieve this?
Thanks!
Michele
1. I know, thank god, right? I got the haircut for the gallery opening and I only got the appointment because my stylist had a cancellation. He is a genius, that man. The hair person on the show was seriously raving about what a great haircut she thought it was! So I was really, really lucky.
2. He is! It’s true!
3. She is exactly every inch that cute! It’s true too!
4. Thaaaank you! I love that dress and will post about it because it is my Dress Barn find, mentioned in a previous post.
5. Thank you!!
Michele, I was very surprised by that result–my blood sugar also went down significantly. I drastically cut the amount of artifical sugar in my diet (the photo above notwithstanding) and I walk a lot, and try to get to the gym when I can. Also, my husband cooks very healthy, locally grown things for dinner!
Thanks for the replies, Mo!
I wish more people tracked non-weight related signs of improving health and fitness. Rather than focus on how many lbs lost, focus on things like lowered cholesterol, or lower blood pressure, or whatever.
I need to go get my cholesterol and blood sugar checked. But I do check my blood pressure periodically.
Michele
Kudos again on your media triumph.
MeMe Roth can be as gracious as she wants, but she’s still promoting shame and fear toward fat. Ok, Ok. I agree with her about changing some policies, too. I said it.
And I think I am the one person in the world who rolls her eyes at the insistence that high fructose corn syrup is eeeeeevil.
Oops … in case you didn’t see my comments over at Shapely Prose — well done on your TV appearance!
Actually, if you like reading Sandy Szwarc’s Junkfood Science blog, you’ll be interested to read this about HFCS’s.
Y’all were awesome, amazing and inspiring. They had nothing to offer other than to trot out the same booga booga science that has been dis-proven time again by studies that weren’t paid for by Big Pharma. And even if being above a certain BMI in and of itself were a death sentence, they *still* did not offer up any sustainable solution to the “problem”.
Thank you so much for your courage and poise!
Hotel rooms in your husbands’ names….
How very 1950’s/I Love Lucy of them. Did you get twin beds too??
There are at least three of us. Sandy’s blogged about it.
OMG! You survived eating whipped cream- a dreaded white food. I bet MeMe had them serve it to you *on purpose!*
You are wonderful beautiful women- inside and out.
How very 1950’s/I Love Lucy of them. Did you get twin beds too??
Well, fat people don’t have sex, do we?
oh i love participating in a “dangerously subversive group”- i thought you both did a fantastic job. :)
Hi, Monique. I’ve already rained my praise upon you and Rachel over at BFB and The F-Word, and I just wanted to come by here and tell you how proud I was to have the Fatosphere represented by two such articulate, beautiful ladies such as yourselves.
on HFCS: I agree with Eric Oliver’s disputing that HFCS is tied to a rise in childhood obesity. It’s basically a coincidence.
Australia and various other countries that have similar childhood “overweight and obesity” rates simply do not have HFCS as a major, common ingredient in anything. You can find it here and there in Australia (mostly in imported products) but about 99.9% of sweets etc are made with either cane sugar (sucrose) or glucose syrup from wheat.
Also, no added hormones and stuff in the dairy and poultry, either. I’ve since learned that some cattle farmers do use bovine growth hormone on their herds, but, uh, it’s bovine growth hormone. Not human. I’m not worried.
YOU. KICK. SO. MUCH. ASS.
It actually hurts how much ass you kick. It’s making me do that terrible “sports victory fist pump” thing. High five! YESSSSSS.
MeMe Roth clearly missed this article in the NYT glorifying a PROMINENT CLAVICLE as a fashion accessory:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/10/fashion/10clavicle.html
Y’all are awesome. Thank you for doing what you do.
p.s. Are HFCS, rGBH, hydrogenated/partially hydrogenated oils really not eeeeeeeeevil? Being the hippy-dippy granola-crunchy person that I am, I had accepted that as gospel truth …
Just watched the green room interview.
My, the Mome Rath simply will NOT see the consequences of her actions, will she? So much love to Rachel and Mo for totally calling her on the disconnect between actions and words.
That poor doc was really not anti-fat per se, what I took away from her was a repeated message of you cannot make blanket statements about the entire overweight population. Which is in line with what you say here all the time. So that’s cool. Too bad she also said that Roth’s stats were very, very accurate.
I know this is kind of veering off topic, but with HFCS, I don’t think anyone is claiming that it has magical fattening properties compared to sugar, it’s just that food companies have discovered that it’s good business to add this uber-cheap and nutrient-free but calorie dense additive to their food products and that they can make a lot of money by selling as much of it as possible. This is less true for more expensive non-subsidized sweeteners like sugar.
You two are adorable- great picture. All those responses are fantastic (I especially like THIN – what a worthy institution!)
About HFCS.. my husband and I try to avoid it, but not because it’s fattening. We try to avoid it because A. I don’t think its healthy or natural, and B. it’s usually in processed foods that we don’t eat anyway.
Yeah, I really loved when Mike asked me if people just assume I am unhealthy. Amongst my family, friends and coworkers, I am known as really healthy, and probably have the best diet out of all of them. My brother always makes jokes at family celebrations about how I can just go in the backyard and collect our dinner (vegetarians eat grass, didn’t you know?) My mom has even started making some healthy veggie dishes for Brandon and I when we have dinners and things. So, his question really struck me as ironic.
Maybe she genuinely does want to help people and might realise that she’s been misguided all along.
This is why I gave her the benefit of the doubt and introduced myself at the beginning of the show and yes, thanked her for being on it. She was defensive from the start. After the green room discussion (you know, when she talked about the need to find the common ground), I wanted to do exactly that. She wants t o get junk food out of the schools; I am a member of a local Earthsave chapter who is doing exactly that. I wanted to stress to her that the reason her message isn’t getting across, and the reason that people do ridicule her and think of her as a nutcase is in the way she presents herself (I tried to make that point in the greenroom discussion, too). She wouldn’t have any of it and was just even more defensive, shrill and combative.
Her organization isn’t called National Action Against Unhealthy Eating; it’s called National Action Against Obesity, which to me, speaks volumes about her true and intended goal.
all these responses are so heartening. i’ve watched the youtube vids 4 times now, i’m just in awe of your cool classiness in the face of buffoonery! and i hope that whipped cream is kinda creamy beige coloured not WHITE!?!? :)
Haha, actually that chocolate drink was ordered by Mo’s husband, who, as he reminded us, has the same BMI as Meme. Mo ordered fruit with a chocolate dip and my husband and I split a piece of chocolate cake with a scoop of ice cream.
This is, actually, one point I didn’t get to make in the show. I do have a very healthy diet and lifestyle, but a healthy diet doesn’t exclude a piece of chocolate cake or, heaven’s forbid, a cupcake from time to time. Food is so much more than the sum of its parts – it’s a way to celebrate, to bond, to self-identify. We don’t only break bread, we break barriers between race, class and gender.
On HCFS: I find it to be evil for me personally. It gives me migraines.
Of course, in America, try to find prepared food without it! I’m fortunate to be able and to have the knowledge to make my own things from scratch and preserve them, but even so it’s a lot, lot, LOT of work that I’d sometimes rather not be doing.
I’d like to lose some weight. The fat I am now is not the fat I like to be. But even now I like my body a lot, and have a lot of fun with it. I’m just having to learn the pleasure of feeding myself food I like.
In the interest of full disclosure:
I’m sort of a bad lefty in that I can’t be all stirred up to get into the whole all local/organic food thing. I just want to go to the grocery store and get meat, bread, fruits, veggies and dairy.
I also don’t avoid processed food. My dad is a chemical engineer, and I grew up with him saying that the body is a wonderful thing that knows how to get nutrients out of food, fresh or processed.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t seek out processed food or anything. But I don’t beat myself up if I pop a lean cuisine in the microwave.
And I simply can’t give up diet coke. I guess I’ll either die of brain cancer or whatever weird cancer develops from actually using too much sunscreen.
Cindy,
I’m with you on the diet Coke thing. My rationalization is that I gave up sugar, don’t smoke, don’t drink, and try to get fresh produce in as much as possible. But my diet coke is mine. If we constantly freak out about every food any time there is a study condemning it we would never eat anything. A perfect example is the whole eggs are evil/eggs are the perfect food/eggs are evil again debate that has been going on the past several decades.
Except that everyone knows that you should never ever have white potatoes in your home.
They’ll run up your cable bill and corrupt your children. ;)
They can have my Diet Coke when they pry it from my cold, dead hands. Ok, just teasing but, I do drink it.
I had to post to congratulate Mo. You sounded fantastic and looked amazing. Y’all did a wonderful job and I’m glad you two were chosen to represent the “fatosphere.” (I hate that word.)