While Dr. Benjamin isn’t coming right out as a fat advocate, she definitely takes a shot at the media for its doom and gloom finger pointing at the fat rampage so-called obesity epidemic. The winds of change are blowing, BFDivas and BFDudes!

(Via Big Fat Blog)

Dear BFD folks,

I have been a reading your blog for awhile and need some advice from you (and the readers) on something. I really hope you can take the time to help me out.

I’ll try to keep a long story short, but here’s some background: I’ve been fat since puberty (I’m in my early 30s now, topped out at about 280 lbs. and a size 22/24). I was teased all through school for my weight, and made the mistake of reading magazines like Cosmo (which just kept telling me that I wasn’t thin or pretty enough) so I had no self-esteem until I found the FA movement in my 20s. I have been a happy fat girl with rockin’ self-esteem ever since.

Last year I moved to a new town and began to work from home. I love working from home, but my workaholic tendencies (coupled with the fact that my commute is now ten feet from my bedroom) meant that I would be at home all day and often didn’t go outside or see another person except for my boyfriend. I was not happy with this. In an effort to take a break from work and go out into the world and see actual people, I began to swim laps every day at a nearby pool. I love it! The physical activity feels great, I’m out in the world, and I have a couple of hours a day where I don’t have to read emails and deal with work.

In starting this new physical activity, weight loss was not my goal. I just wanted to get out and do more with my body than click a mouse. But, as can happen with exercise and healthful eating (I was already a veggie-lover), I am starting to lose weight. My friends and family have been noticing and making the positive comments that everyone makes in these situations. Namely: “You look great – have you lost weight?”

So here’s my problem: How do I deal with these comments? I don’t want to tell them that I have lost weight, because I feel like that’s leading them to believe that I buy into the Western Beauty Standard BS that being thin is the ideal and if you’re fat you automatically wish you were thin and diet all the time. But I also don’t want to shame them for giving me a compliment because, after all, they are my family and friends and they only mean well.

I thought about saying something like, “Thank you for noticing I have changed, but I prefer not to discuss my body,” but that sounds a little…standoffish and like something you’d say to a stranger and not your mom or your best girlfriend. If it’s possible, I’d actually like to steer the praise to the fact that I’m dropping 60+ laps a day at the pool. That is such an amazing thing to me that I did not know I could achieve and that means way more to me than what size dress I’m wearing these days. And, if I’m swimming that far at 280 lbs., every day, the haters who think us fatties just sit on the couch and eat cupcakes all day have to suck it hard now, right? :)

Thanks in advance,
cubicalgirl

Here is an old Shapely Prose post answering this very question!

Aunt Fattie’s recommendation: variations on the theme of “really? I hadn’t noticed.” For people who are keenly attuned to others’ weight fluctuations, this is guaranteed to blow their minds. It is not rude or dismissive, but the genuine indifference not to the weight loss compliment but to weight loss itself alerts people that something unusual is going on here.

I’m sure poking around in the comments of that thread will yield some other good advice. BFD readers, what do you think?

“I’m on a raw-food diet,” says Seyfried. “It’s intense, and sort of awful. Yesterday for lunch? Spinach and some seeds… If I didn’t run and work out, there’s no way I would be this thin. But I have to stay in shape because I’m an actress.” She adds: “It’s fucked up and twisted, but I wouldn’t get the roles otherwise. If I had been bigger, I don’t think they would have cast me for Mamma Mia! “

Here’s the really depressing quote:

“I’m not a beautiful prom-girl type,” she has said. “It’s very easy for me to gain weight. Even though I tried not eating for a week when I was really young, I couldn’t do it any longer because I liked my food too much.”

Oh honey. It’s not that you “liked food too much,” it’s that NOT EATING FOR A WEEK IS FUCKING INSANE. Also, it’s called “starvation.”

The bubbling rage against fat people in America has put researchers like Levine in a difficult position. On the one hand, she says, she wants to ensure that obesity is taken seriously as a medical problem, and pointing out the costs associated with obesity-related illnesses helps illustrate the severity of the situation. On the other hand, she says, doing so could increase the animosity people have toward the overweight, many of whom may already live healthy lives or may be working hard to make heathier choices.

“The idea is to fight obesity and not obese people,” she says, and then pauses. “But it’s very hard for many people to disentangle the two.”

Now Newsweek has an amazing gallery of fat people exercising, along with their stories. Don’t miss it, it’s completely 100% awesome.

(Via Big Fat Blog.)

This first one, I think it was the exclamation point that sucked me in. But I took the text from Yahoo! (there’s that exclamation point again).

1. Obese U.S. Man Hides Gun Between Rolls of Fat!

Twenty-five-year-old George Vera was charged with possession of a firearm in a correctional facility…Vera was originally arrested on charges of selling illegal copies of compact discs. The 500-pound man was searched during his arrest and again at a city jail and the county jail, but officers never found the weapon in his rolls of skin. Vera admitted having the gun during a shower break at the county jail.

2. Brits Too Lazy To Have Sex, Let Alone Run For A Bus

People need to get fitter, not just for their own sake, but for the sake of their families, friends, and evidently their pets, too. If we don’t start to take control of this problem, a whole generation will become too unfit to perform even the most rudimentary of tasks.’

Doctors blamed chubby celebrities for adding to the obesity crisis by showing that it is possible to be fat and famous.

From, “we are fat and lazy because of e.g. Ricky Gervais” to “WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE”:

3. Obesity-Cancer Link Is Growing

In the 1980s, researchers focused on the amount of fat people ate as a probable cause of cancer, but studies did not strongly support that. Later they turned to diets high in fruits and vegetables as a way to reduce cancer, but again, Willett said, they struggled to find convincing evidence in studies.

Now attention has turned to obesity, and more and more research is providing evidence that indict that as a cancer cause.

I remember Rachel Twittered about this one:

4. Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin

“In general, for weight loss, exercise is pretty useless,” says Eric Ravussin, chair in diabetes and metabolism at Louisiana State University and a prominent exercise researcher. Many recent studies have found that exercise isn’t as important in helping people lose weight as you hear so regularly in gym advertisements or on shows like The Biggest Loser — or, for that matter, from magazines like this one.

The basic problem is that while it’s true that exercise burns calories and that you must burn calories to lose weight, exercise has another effect: it can stimulate hunger. That causes us to eat more, which in turn can negate the weight-loss benefits we just accrued. Exercise, in other words, isn’t necessarily helping us lose weight. It may even be making it harder.

And the last one is just embarrassing (also, it’s a three-paragraph article with like 87 typos, my god):

5. Ashlee’s Secret To Post Baby Weight Loss

Ashlee, who gave birth to her son Bronx Mowgli with rocker hubby Pete eight months ago, said that reducing weight after the delivery was much easier than she had thought. Ashlee told People’s Celebrity Baby Blog : “After I had Bronx I lucked out…I mean, I’m 24-years-old. I have the genes from my mother and I did work out for three months, ” reports the Sun .

The singer-actress, who is all set to return to the world of television in Melrosde Place, said she and Pete manage their time with son Brionx easily.

Um, [sic].

Any thoughts about 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5? Please share!

Interventions should focus on health, not weight, so as to not contribute to the overvaluation of weight and shape and negative attitudes about fatness that are common among children and have harmful effects on their physical, social and psychological well-being.

Or…

Interventions should focus not only on providing opportunities for appropriate levels of physical activity and healthy eating, but also promote self-esteem, body satisfaction, and respect for body size diversity. [C]onstructing a social environment where all children are supported in feeling good about their bodies is essential to promoting health in youth.

Or even…

It is unrealistic to expect all children to fit into the “normal weight” category. Thus, interventions should not be marketed as “obesity prevention.” Rather, interventions should be referred to as “health promotion,” as the ultimate goal is the health and well-being of all children, and health encompasses many factors besides weight.

These guidelines make sense, and I love the emphasis on not stigmatizing kids or making them feel fat is shameful. I hope parents and educators and OMG CHILDHOOD OBESITY crisis experts are listening. If these guidelines become the norm, we could really start to break the cycle of self-loathing and fat hate—and have physically and mentally healthier kids in the process.

Our plan is this: five weeks, six days per week – one-and-a-half to two hours per day, which is what Madonna and Gwyneth do. We will do 40 minutes of cardio exercise in each session, followed by one-and-a-half hours of Pilates-based toning exercises… It’s unlike any other workout because Jonathan will change what we do after every eight sessions in order to prevent the muscles from getting used to anything and to keep them working hard.

Ashley Pearson says things like, “I feel awful every morning. People have started to tell me they can see a difference physically, but I’m too tired to care” and “he gently suggests that if I do need to vomit, I should make sure I lean away from the machines.” One gets the sense that this workout regimen is nothing less than pure torture.

Jezebel sums up the results (although you can read the blow-by-blow at the Daily Mail link):

Pearson notes that during those five weeks she almost vomited during workouts, aggravated her constantly aching left knee, and started avoiding stairs because it hurt too much to climb them. The workouts also took a huge toll on her personal life: she couldn’t concentrate, her boyfriend broke up with her, she was too tired to maintain a social life, and she was constantly showering or doing laundry.

Though you might expect that Pearson would realize after going through this “nightmare” that such a gym routine wasn’t worth it or condemn the society that demands our celebrities obsess about their weight, all Pearson takes from this experience is that we should have more respect for Gwyneth and Madonna… Apparently having a lower quality of life is worth it, as long as you’re 10 pounds skinnier.

Amen, sisters. And hilariously, Ashley Pearson’s before and after photos look totally indistinguishable. She’s wearing poufy clothing in both of them, and I defy you to see any difference. Her outfit in the “after” photo is very cute, though.

Thanks to either Nonk or Annie or both for the link!

photo by Michael Justus/Times-News

I ran across this news in my google reader, and at first blush, it made me happy–a picture of a little girl with a hula hoop! The idea of a small sponsoring an exciting activity day for kids, saying Hey, kids, it is cool to go out and play and run and be active and happy and use that awesome and excellent body you have which is a miracle of engineering and science and biology. Activity is good! Hula hooping is fun! Let’s go run down the block for the sheer, unadulterated joy of pumping our legs and arms and feeling our hearts slamming in our chest and knowing that everything is our bodies are designed to support us and keep us moving from place to place.

That’s good stuff, there. It makes me a little sad that we need to remind kids of this, that we’ve become a sedentary society with so many electronic options for entertainment available at our fingertips that it is difficult to want to shut them off and shift our butts down the couch and go do something on our feet, but that’s what we get, for living in the future (and what I think is so interesting about the Wii Fit and how it addresses that, but that is a whole other post).

Anyway, I moved past my immediate happy first impression and past the adorable photo, and discovered that Activity Day was sponsored by the Childhood Obesity Prevention Demonstration Project, and I got irrationally irritated. We will not ever stop shrieking about childhood obesity, will we? That’s always going to be the focus, The Danger of Maybe Getting Fat. Why can’t the focus just be on health, on activity, on making good choices, at being fit whatever size and shape you end up with? Saying, it is good to be healthy, rather than, Let’s make sure you don’t get fat!

The thing that kills me is that they’re doing something important–encouraging healthy habits (because no one can argue that it’s not a good idea to take care of your body) and being active and staying strong. I don’t want to be irritated; I want to applaud initiatives that encourage well-being. But I am so tired of that link between size and health, and tired of feeling that it is just never going to be broken.

“I remember going to the fitting and trying on a few swimsuits for a scene… I felt fairly triumphant. (The costume designer) literally went grey in the face and said, ‘Do you want me to tell you how long you’ve got before this scene is shot?’ By the time I arrived back at my hotel, I’d been faxed an incredibly rigorous gym schedule and a diet.”

The actress tells America’s Self magazine she tried to stick to the diet until she started feeling faint on set – and then she discovered she wasn’t the only star struggling to get thin. She adds, “Thank God for Ben Affleck! He was so candid about the producers doing the exact same thing to him. “Once I realised it was happening to the boys, too… I was able to put it in perspective.”

Old-timey it may be, but it’s an interesting glimpse into the world of Hollywood and how they treat their stars: of both genders.

Oprah had invited him a few months ago to one of her “amazing weight loss shows” to tell his weight loss story. But he declined the offer, saying he couldn’t get off from work. “I lied about that” he told Oprah yesterday. The truth was Eric Chopin has regained 107 lbs of the 214 lbs he initially lost. He said he decided to reveal the truth to his fans after Oprah’s courageous move of revealing her 40 lb weight gain…

How did Eric gain the weight? Well, he didn’t really know – it just crept up on him, he said. Perhaps the fact that he wasn’t working out 5 hours a day like he was on the “Biggest Loser” ranch, helped…

I think a lot of people can relate to the experience of regaining weight. Being confronted with pictures of yourself at your thinnest, un-maintainable weight, the feeling of failure, all of that positive reinforcement that comes with losing weight—hey, everyone notices!—gradually turning to silence when you regain it. I’ve lost and regained weight myself, and I’ve been there. But what do you do then?

Everyone assumes if you did it before, you can do it again. Do you buy into that same mentality, go back on the diet, let your weight continue to yo-yo? Or do you let go of that expectation, “someday I will be that skinny again” and embrace good principles of health, try to focus on eating fruits and veggies and exercising to the best of your ability and all that good stuff, and stop caring what people think? Do you flat-out tell people, hey, the number on the scale isn’t everything.

My friends, it’s hard, and I don’t have answers for you. I wonder, though, how much harder is it when you’re on television, when you’ve “won” a reality show, when you’ve been praised not only by your friends and loved ones but by all of America? You’re voluntarily putting yourself under the microscope, and then you’re under that microscope forever. I look at Eric and I see my own anxieties and insecurities and “oh shit, how hard could it have been to just stay the same weight” magnified times a hundred, and I know he’ll never be able to get away from those expectations of losing all the weight all over again, and I feel sad for him and a little sad for everyone else.

On Oprah, Eric looked ashamed of himself, the old “I did this to myself” and Oprah, now the world’s most renown expert on “falling off the wagon” consoled him that 2009 would be a better year… But should Eric or any of the “Biggest losers” who were unable to maintain the loss really be blamed? It’s quite possible that the only thing “they did to themselves” was offer themselves up to be on the show.

That’s an excellent question. And my other question is: have you lost weight and then regained it, or regained part of it? Have you had to put back on the fat pants, start shopping in the plus section again, face other issues that you thought you wouldn’t have to face again? How do you handle that, and what does it all make you think, and how does it make you feel? Let’s talk about it.