What If We Don't Put Down The Donuts?
Here, from Sarah in the previous post, is a comment worth commenting on. (She’s talking about a scene in Drop Dead Diva that depicts our fat leading character binging on donuts and cream cheese):
I’m not bothered by the overeating though. I am 100% on the FA bandwagon, and I know fat can be caused by many things, but the knee jerk negative reaction to depictions of fat people in TV or movies who overeat ignores the fact that plenty of fat people DO overeat. I am one of them!
Granted, even when I ate healthfully and worked out a lot more than I do now, I was not thin, that’s just not my genes. But my current size 24 is absolutely caused by the fact that I’ve been avoiding exercise and eating WAY too much for the last year or so. So, maybe the Jane character is supposed to be like me–she eats when she’s stressed, struggles with massive cravings all the time (I tend to drool over donuts too, what can I say), and has a tendency to binge. There’s nothing wrong with it.
Actually, I am sometimes put off by comments on some FA blogs that are always offended by implications in the media that overeating causes fat. Sometimes…it just does, doesn’t it? I know it’s not the ONLY cause, but our tendency to fly off the handle about it sometimes makes me feel ashamed that I am one of those “bad fatties†who really DOES eat an entire pint of ice cream in one sitting, or an entire pizza, etc.
I would never, however, eat squirt cheese straight from the can. Ew…everyone knows it requires wheat thins! ;-)
A follow-up:
Oh, and when I say “there’s nothing wrong with it,†I am not saying that Iâ€m not aware that my eating is disordered….I obviously struggle with bingeing issues that I have yet to deal with. I just meant there’s nothing wrong (in my opinion) with portraying those very real issues in a TV show….especially one that has a chance to be so fat positive!
And M. Jinxx adds:
Sarah, I am TOTALLY with you on that point.
In fact , before I got to your comment, I was reading the others and I had the same impression and was going to mention it but you beat me to the punch. I have PCOS and have for years and I also come from a big family, so I will never be tiny, but my recent jump to a 24 from my usual 18-20 is completely because of overeating and lack of quality exercise.What about people like us, with disordered eating ( I am also a binger and an emotional eater ) who really are fat(ter) because of overeating?
It is a bit disheartening to belong to the “bad fattie†group.
I wonder if the issues with the media portrayal are that it’s not being depicted as disordered eating, but merely playing into the “fat people are greedy” and “just put down the donuts” stereotypes. I recently ate a handful of Oreos at a family party, and I thought to myself, self, people are going to think you and all other fat people are fat because you can’t stop eating Oreos. And then I felt guilty about the Oreos anyway, not just residual good food bad food guilt, but also that I had let down my cause by playing into the stereotype. (This kind of crap is what leads people to binge in secret; I’m just saying.)
But what do you think–if we deny this reality, does this just alienate people who recognize themselves in characters who binge or stress eat? Do we want binge eaters to get help for themselves, or for the cause of fat acceptance, or both? And given, for example, the portrayal of Miranda on Sex and the City eating cake out of the garbage can, where does “normal” end and “disordered” begin? Do we all, at one point or another, fat or thin, sometimes pick up the donut, so to speak?
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Advocacy, Drop Dead Diva, Eating Disorders, Fatism, Personal, Question, TV
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I think for me, the issue isn’t that sometimes overweight characters are portrayed as overeating – it’s that they are ALWAYS portrayed as overeating. Constantly. If someone is overweight on a TV show, there is sure to be at least one scene where they are grotesquely gorging themselves. I’m not saying that doesn’t happen, but every! single! time! does grow old.
I think that there was a great analysis of this in Rethinking Thin. I don’t have my copy anymore (it’s out on loan to somebody else) – but one of Kolata’s points is that there are thin “emotional eaters” and there are fat ones and average ones too, but I think that this is one more way we kick our own asses more than we need to. I have PCOS, and I get hungry. Does the PCOS make me hungrier than I would be if my hormone profile was different? How the fuck would I know? I’m just hungry. So I eat until I am not hungry anymore. The definition of whether or not that arbitrary amount of food is too much a matter of opinion, and I define it as “the right amount” because it’s the amount of food that made me not hungry anymore.
If I have time to eat home cooked meals and go for a 45 minute walk every day, I tend to be at the low end of a size 24. If I don’t, after a few weeks those clothes get tighter, but both ends for me are in the natural range for my body, regardless of whether my lunch on any give day is bean soup or a can of Pringles.
It’s tempting to draw a line between good fat and bad fat, but there’s no cut off point, so that those rad fatties on one side deserve love and respect and those rad fatties on the other don’t; they’re all rad fatties. And there’s no way to discern a person’s lifestyle by looking. Isn’t it especially tempting to draw the line if we consider ourselves good fat? I mean, really, we’re doing the best we can, whatever which way we live our fatness.
I LOVE to pick up the donut. But even when I don’t, I don’t magically get skinny. I, like many other women, have issues with binging and disordered eating. I don’t think it’s bad PR for a TV show to show a fatty eating donuts. I think it’s bad for every TV show to show every fatty eating donuts, which is where the media really is right now. When we criticize Drop Dead Diva for showing a fat girl binging on donuts and cream cheese, I think we’re criticizing it for showing ONLY the behavior which non-FA people find offensive.
Bottom line? Yes, binging and disordered eating cause fatness. But there are lots of other causes, and plenty of people who don’t binge and are still fat (or people who have stopped binging and are still fat) and it would be nice if the media would reflect that.
As an aside, I’m surprised that you didn’t say anything about the original commenters’ good fattie/bad fattie language, Mo Pie. It would have been nice, I think, to reiterate that there is no such thing as a good fatty or a bad fatty, and just as your personhood doesn’t depend on your weight, it also doesn’t depend on your behavior.
As a guy, I know my viewpoint doesn’t hold as much weight (no pun intended), but I see it as a sort of “What is the director’s intention” question.
Why are we seeing the fat person eating? Is it a poignant scene about her struggle with overeating (as in the made-for-TV movie “Fat Like Me”) or is it to point and laugh at the fatty with the cheesecake.
I haven’t watched “Drop Dead Diva”, but the clips I saw seem a little gratuitous with the overeating. Maybe its because its showing the skinny woman finally getting to let loose, but how often do you stand in the middle of the room holding a bigass plate of cheesecake and chow down while everyone around you just watches?
I think having a kneejerk reaction to depictions of BBWs eating in the media is potentially damaging to the movement, though. Its like how the NAACP is perceived is overreacting when they put out a statement every time they have a grievance. We should pace ourselves and not become caricatures of protest.
I LOVE this comment! I too have gotten offended by all the FA blogs that essentially state, “How DARE the media imply that people get fat by overeating! All fat people are perfectly healthy who eat salads and run on the treadmill every day! There are no health risks associated with being fat!”
Ok,ok, I exaggerate a little, but there are too many in the FA movement who over-react to the media. I agree that there are plenty of active fat people (I am one), but there are also those whose bad habits got them where they are today (again, I am one.) I’d like to find some common ground between the fat-bashing media and the over-zealous blind-to-faults FA’ers.
To echo others here… I would be completely down with the media portrayals of fat people scarfing down a box of Krispy Kreme if A) It wasn’t the ONLY representation of fat people, and B) They also showed thin people with binge eating issues, as not all people with BED are fat.
Couple of things here:
– Some people have eating disorders involving compulsive overeating, and this can cause a lot of weight gain. Some people with eating disorders wouldn’t be fat if not for the disorder.
But when shows depict a gorging fattie, typically they’re not portraying someone with an eating disorder; they’re saying the fattie is greedy and that’s why they’re fat. By implication, anyone who’s fat is simply greedy.
– Most people will move around within a range of weights depending on their activity level and whether they’re eating well. I have a range of about 10% of my body weight, personally; from what I can tell from what other people say, this seems pretty typical for women.
But when shows depict a lazy and poorly-eating fattie, they’re not portraying someone who would weigh 225 instead of 250 if she ate better and exercised; they’re saying that eating poorly and not exercising is enough by itself to move you from 120 to 250, and if the lazy fattie just put down the donut, she’d be acceptably thin. Which in real life is not likely.
These media portrayals we’re talking about aren’t realistic depictions of people with eating disorders nor of the natural weight fluctuations you get depending on activity and home cooking. If the media showed a fat woman with an eating disorder, a disease needing treatment that required us to be compassionate toward the person, I would applaud it. But that ain’t what’s going on; they portray all fat people as gorging, and moreover, as gorging out of greed and weakness rather than as the result of a mental illness. And that is one ugly stereotype and needs to be called out.
You can be disgusted with the use of careless stereotyping to demonize all fat people without ignoring the very real problem of eating disorders, after all….
I have to admit, I’ve been reading FA blogs for a while now and have felt the same difficulty with the tendency to pretend that overeating is somehow an unusual way of becoming overweight. I understand the desire to take the blame/shame away, and I totally agree that being fat has nothing to do with being good or bad, and that food has no inherent morality, and that it is possible to be both fat and healthy… but c’mon.
It shouldn’t be heresy to admit that some of us are fat because we treat break-ups with brownies or just plain eat too much, too often.
Mo, Thank you so much for noticing my and Sarah’s earlier comments! I appreciate you making this a post on it’s own, and I am really looking forward to seeing all the comments as they come in to check out others opinions on this.
I want to respond to Monica, about the “bad fatty” language. I am pretty new to FA , although I have been advocating the principals of it for a long time, I never knew that was what it was or that thier were others out there who felt the same as me.
As much as I hate to admit it, there were times that I would see other fat people who were larger than me eating fast food or riding the bus one stop so they did not have to walk down the block and I would tell myself that those people were “bad fats” , they were giving us all a bad name and I secretly disliked them and I was a “good fat” because I did not eat junk food and exercised 3-4 times a week .. which is exactly the kind of discrimination I know FA is all about stopping. I feel very guilty for having felt this way but ,even as a fat person, it can be hard to break those stereotypes that have been , pardon the pun, forcefed to us for so long. I am also learning that my hatred of my own body has triggered my binge/compulsive over eating for many years and I project that hatred onto others sometimes.
Now that I am the largest I have been in all my 28 years, I guess I am going through a period of adjustment to not let this new, larger body define me as a “bad fat” , in fact I am trying to stop using that language altogether and trying to see my fat sisters and brothers in the same light , no matter thier size. I apologize for the length of this comment.
I think, for me, it’s all about one word: equality.
When the media portrays fats as ONLY gluttonous, slobby fools, then that’s a problem (as stated by earlier commenters).
I mean, come on . . . we see in an episode of “Friends” (forgive the throwback, but it’s the only thing I can think of right now) when Chandler gets dumped and the girls tell him it’s time to get out the good ice cream. We think that’s funny, and understandable. We sympathise.
When a fatty does the same thing? THE. SAME. FREAKING. THING., mind you. It’s all of a sudden ZOMGOODNESS! Fat Police! SHUNNN the fatty!
Give me a break. Yes, fat people sometimes overeat and don’t exercise enough . . . but, guess what? So do thin/average people.
I think I would have less of an issue if the media started portraying fatties as the same as everyone else . . . but the likelyhood of that? Well . . . we won’t go there.
You know what, I’m an emotional eater and a boredom snacker. These things, however, are not central to me as a person. If I’d done something amazing enough to make a movie or show about, the fact that I nibble on carrots or tortilla chips when I’m not paying attention wouldn’t even make the screen. So, thin people boredom snack, thin people binge eat, thin people overeat, but it’s never important enough to make a thin character in a movie or show do that without some larger context. Meanwhile, every fat character, ever, overeats, or boredom snacks, or has one binging scene. Often without any real context other than “this is why she’s fat”.
The only place I don’t mind it is in Dawn French’s portrayal in “The Vicar of Dibley”, because that character always did everything to excess when she was stressed.
Here’s the issue I have with the portrayal of fat people as those who overindulge all the time: fat people aren’t the only ones who do it!
Two people you highlighted from the comments talk about being size 24 instead of 18-20 because they were eating more and exercising less. Well, what about all those folks who are usually size 8 and now are 10-12 because of the same reason? The ones who are usually size 2 and are not 4-6? Fat people aren’t the only ones who occasionally overindulge or under exercise and gain more weight than they usually carry. And yet no shows portray them as unhealthy bingers who should be ashamed of their disordered eating.
Sure, I don’t eat the best diet in the world. But my diet is no different from people I know who may be 10-20 pounds overweight. Instead, I’m 150 overweight. Instead of wearing a size 10-12, I wear a size 26. And yet, those with just a little extra weight due to poor diet and habits are not constantly judged the way those of us who are bigger are.
That’s the issue I have with these portrayals of fat people as constantly eating.
As a fat person who does not usually overeat, I resent that ONLY the overeaters are depicted on television. I believe this is because the powers that be don’t want the genetic causes of body size to be known, as it would endanger the diet companies.
I believe the perception of most fat people as overeaters is dangerous. The public thinks that all fat people have to do to become thin is to eat as normal people do. What they don’t understand is many fat people have to eat much LESS than thin people, in a way that is totally unnatural for anyone to eat to lose weight and keep it off. I am sorry if overeaters feel alienated, but much fat discrimination is based on this misperception. Even many fat bigots would think otherwise if they knew some people had to exercise 4 to 5 hours a day and live on under 900 calories to keep weight off. As I did, and still could never get below a 12.
Furthermore, I think that most people fail to realize how weight obsession and dieting cause binging. Are people really obsessed with donuts for donuts sake? Or because they are forbidden? Or they have recently been on a diet? I personally believe if we had no weight obsession, many people would find it much easier to eat in accordance with their natural appetites. Especially if they ate natural food without all the addicting chemicals and such.
Most of us pick up a donut for some reason other than hunger at one point in our lives – I think that denying that doesn’t help anyone. And I, for one, appreciated the juxtaposition of Jane’s desire for chocolate with her friend’s desire for a martini – implying that many people just pick their poison, and it’s not just the heavy folks who have cravings.
The show is still problematic, but there’s some potential there. Like others have said well in the comments above, I think that the problem lies mostly with the fact that fat folks on TV are seen as utterly The Other, and therefore everything she does has too much meaning.
However, there was another part of this post that grabbed me:
Do we want binge eaters to get help for themselves, or for the cause of fat acceptance, or both?
This quote stuck out for me – I don’t believe that I fit the diagnoses for BE, but I’m definitely a ‘bad’ fatty a lot of the time – cooking bores me, and last night I had a dinner of 2 cheese danishes. Emotional issues are definitely present in how I eat, but I absolutely despise the idea that anyone has desires about what I do with my body. Even if it’s ‘for my own good’ and even in the cases where that’s born out of genuine concern, I think it’s presumptuous to lay claim to my life in that way.
I don’t want to imply that you, Mo, are on a crusade to stop all us bingers from ourselves, but that phrasing was pretty provocative. FA is a hell of a lot easier when there’s a unrefutable answer to all of the ‘but isn’t it your fault?’ questions, and I fall prey to this thinking, too. However, replacing sizeism with healthism is easy, but it’s not any kind of improvement.
Two people you highlighted from the comments talk about being size 24 instead of 18-20 because they were eating more and exercising less. Well, what about all those folks who are usually size 8 and now are 10-12 because of the same reason? The ones who are usually size 2 and are not 4-6? Fat people aren’t the only ones who occasionally overindulge or under exercise and gain more weight than they usually carry. And yet no shows portray them as unhealthy bingers who should be ashamed of their disordered eating.
Yes! Sure, routinely eating when you aren’t hungry and routinely eating past the point of comfortable fullness will, for most people, push their weight a bit above their usual setpoint. But, that happens whether you are naturally fat or naturally thin. I know that when I’m eating really well and exercising a lot, my weight will hover around 195. When I’m routinely overeating and not exercising as much as I should, it hovers around 215. For me, it’s the difference between being about a size 16 and about a size 18. Usually, my weight is somewhere in the middle. It’s really no different from a person who usually weighs around 150 but might get down to 140 if they are exercising a lot and cut back on junk food and might get up to 160 after the holidays.
Thin people, like fat people, can and do sometimes eat more than their body strictly needs and gain some weight because of it. They move to the higher end of their body’s weight range. But, that doesn’t mean that fat people are fat because they overeat. Overeating is, I think, a common and normal experience in societies where there is an abundance of food. I don’t know anybody, fat or thin, who doesn’t at least sometimes eat past the point of comfortable fullness, or eat when they aren’t hungry. I think it’s very easy for fat people to assume that they are fat because they eat too much, rather than recognizing that, as researcher has found, they don’t eat more or less than anybody else. Overeating might push them to the top of their natural weight range, but in all likelihood their natural weight range is fat.
And I, for one, appreciated the juxtaposition of Jane’s desire for chocolate with her friend’s desire for a martini – implying that many people just pick their poison, and it’s not just the heavy folks who have cravings.
I haven’t seen the show, but that would REALLY bug me, personally. Because, thin people eat donuts, too. I’ve had grad classes where a professor brought donuts in, and everybody grabbed one, fat or thin. In fact, in settings I’ve been in where “bad” foods are brought in, it’s actually fat people who are less likely to take some than thin people. The assumption that thin people not only don’t overeat, but never eat “unhealthy” foods, is patently false and, I think, very damaging. It makes fat people think that the way they eat is disordered and wrong, when in fact they are eating just like everybody else.
I noticed this watching one of those morning news shows the other day. They were talking about making healthy choices at fast food places, and the assumption was clearly that nobody who wasn’t overweight would EVER dare order a burger and fries. A fat viewer would absolutely come away feeling like they were unhealthy and out of control because they got a burger when they went to a fast food restaurant. And yet I’ve been to fast food restaurants with people of all sizes, and nobody I’ve ever gone with has ever opted to get a salad and a parfait: everybody gets a burger and fries. It’s what most fat people AND most thin people eat when they get fast food, and to make it out to be pathological behavior just feeds into the false perception many fat people have that however much they eat is too much, and that their normal and natural appetite is some sort of unreasonable craving.
I agree with the others. When the only media depictions of people in your group fit a certain stereotype, it’s really, really tiresome. And true binge eating is NOT FUNNY. It’s fucking painful, and treating it like a punch line just ensures that fat people who do binge don’t get the help they need, only more shame about their weight (right, because the only reason anyone binges is insufficient shame).
As for whether “picking up a donut” now and then is going to make a difference of 50 pounds or more…no. It just isn’t. And I’ve yet to be in a donut shop, rib joint, fast food place, ice cream shop, etc., where only fat people were eating. (Hell, I’ve been in places like that lots of times when I was the only fatass.)
I’m a deathfat person (size 26/28) who doesn’t overeat and it gets extremely frustrating to see TV and movies always depicting fat people as constantly eating, not because they have a real and serious binge disorder, but because they are portrayed as greedy pigs. And that’s wrong. It also makes a mockery of BED—how can people take it seriously when it’s used to represent a stereotype of how all fat people eat?
I don’t do intuitive eating but I think it’s a good practice. I eat what I eat, whether it’s fried chicken or a salad. People should be allowed to eat what they want without shame by the public. And Lori is right about fast food places—customers of all sizes are ordering burgers, fries and soda. But again, the perception is that only the fatties are refusing to do what they are expected to do and not get the salad and bottled water.
That just made me feel 100% better about eating a giant muffin and a Snickers bar today, which I was feeling awful about. Not that I ate them so much as that people might have SEEN me eat them, and therefore I am a bad fatty, showing the world that “hey, this is why I’m fat!” or something. When you think that way, obviously it’s disordered and stupid, but someone else coming out and saying the same thing, about those Oreos, helps me step back out of myself and stop feeling such crazy, silly shame. Life is too short to feel guilty for giving fat people a bad reputation. I am only one person and there’s only so much I can do, and make a whole ton of people look bad because I ate a Snickers is not one of those things.
OMG people! You and the TV are totally right! I am fat BECAUSE I eat too much and don’t get REAL exercise (only fake exercise, like walking places). If I start going to the gym and spending hours a week doing things that I utterly loathe, and eat exactly how many calories the calorie calculator I googled says I should (this will involve switching to a diet of all processed foods because they actually have nutrition labels) I will TOTALLY STOP BEING FAT. Or at least if I had done that since I was two years old I would have never gotten fat in the first place.
When you say “overeating makes many people fat” you guys are failing to include the part about how, while someone who eats and exercises perfectly will likely weigh less than they would if they ate too much and didn’t exercise, the difference between being a perfect “good fatty” and a binge-eating non-exercising “bad fatty” is not enough to make a difference in whether many fatties are considered fatties.
It could be possible to have a nuanced and sensitive portrayal of a fat person with a binge-eating disorder! But it would be very difficult to do it without falling into the old stereotypes. They would have to show other characters of a variety of body sizes who had both disordered and non-disordered eating, not JUST fat people who binge and thin people who don’t. This would require them to have more than one fat character, and I don’t really see that happening.
I like the show. Yes, it does seem to play into some of the stereotypes and Jane seriously needs a better wardrobe, but it also shows an attractive, plus-sized woman with a thriving career, a sweet car and burgeoning sense of self-esteem. Aside from all that, did anyone else notice the manic light in her friend’s eyes when she suggested they go out to eat? “We don’t eat after 8,” the friend said. Then, there was the friend’s one cookie, two cookie, three cookie, four cookie alert system, which I thought was bit on the disturbing side.
I have never been confused about binging. I watched my mother, who was bulemic, do that, and I have never binged the way she used to. Eating a lot of food because you are hungry is NOT the same as a disordered binge, and I get really tired of hearing people say they “binged” because they ate something that wasn’t on their stupid diet. I always assumed she was fat because she binged, but I never binged, in fact, I would go so far as to say I am most often a restrictive eater, and yet, I am similarly fat. I also used to walk everywhere, exercise was a non issue. Yet I am still fat. If I had eaten a lot more donuts, would I attribute my fat to the donuts? I don’t know, but I am beginning to think that overeating=obesity is pure bunk, and that people are being brainwashed into thing they have eating disorders when they are actually just normally hungry, and eating a normal amount of food. I’ve been reading Gary Taubes book, and I watched a lecture he gave to some physicians, and there is a lot more science to people being fat than it being a simple matter of calories in=calories out overeating=fat. It may be true that some fat people binge, I have seen that, but it is a disservice to allow that to be the stereotype of fat people. Or to let people think that is a a primary reason for obesity — when it probably really has nothing to do with it.
But when shows depict a lazy and poorly-eating fattie, they’re not portraying someone who would weigh 225 instead of 250 if she ate better and exercised; they’re saying that eating poorly and not exercising is enough by itself to move you from 120 to 250, and if the lazy fattie just put down the donut, she’d be acceptably thin. Which in real life is not likely.
This. THIS. Yes, exercising more or eating “better” might make me lose 25lbs.
BUT NOT 250!!!! AND THAT IS HOW IT IS PORTRAYED.
Ditto to Vic’s comment. That’s my qualms with it too. I think it could be alienating. I stress eat sometimes. Although I do it a lot less now than I used to. Blogs can be stress relievers! lol. And I am obese and unhealthy because I don’t take care of myself and excersize and eat healthily…..or didn’t actually, I’m working on it, but dammit you need money to eat healthy, lol.
Anywho though, that doesn’t mean that everyone is. And I’ll always be a big girl, I already know that, BMI the peice o crap that it is says I should weigh 160 lbs. But with my body frame I think I would look unhealthy and starved. Even my sister looked at me like I was a crackpot when I said I should weigh 160.
But fat acceptance to me is the same as body acceptance and body loving. I will love my body no matter how big or small it is. Everyone is different and looks or weighs however for different reasons. Not all thin people are ana’s or mia’s and not all fat people are slovenly or greedy, which is what the media just loves to show a lot of times. It’s like they can’t get past stereotypes, ever. It’s mostly in the genes anyways.
Wow, this is one long ass comment.
And I am obese and unhealthy because I don’t take care of myself and excersize and eat healthily…..
Honestly, I think that’s buying into the self-hate the powers that be want fat people to have. You might be obese and unhealthy AND overeat and not exercise, but it does NOT mean the two are related. There are thin people who overeat and don’t exercise, healthy people who overeat and don’t exercise, fat people who eat well and exercise a lot, and unhealthy people who are active and eat well. Our behaviors tend to have much less effect on our size and our health than we are led to believe.
That’s not to say that there aren’t benefits to exercising the eating well. I’m about 20 pounds heavier going into this pregnancy than I was when I was pregnant with my son. It’s 6 years later, I had a baby, and at the time I got pregnant with him I was off of an SSRI that I’m back on. However, six years ago when I was 20 pounds thinner, I exercised very sporadically and ate terribly. I almost never ate veggies or fruits and we routinely ate lunch and dinner out, eating portions that were much larger than what we would have needed to be satisfied. Now, I routinely walk 3-4 miles a day, make a concerted effort to eat fruits and veggies, and don’t have the money or desire to eat out much.
And, my blood pressure is quite a bit lower than it was when I was pregnant with my son. Now, it’s not like 40 pounds lower: like other things, a lot of blood pressure issues our beyond our control, and just like diet and exercise won’t make a 100 pound difference for most people, diet and exercise generally won’t take your blood pressure from 170/110 to 110/70. But, my blood pressure used to routinely run about 130/80, and now is consistently about 115/70. I was able to make a small but significant impact on my health by making healthy changes–particularly exercising more and making a real effort to reduce anxiety–even though I’m heavier than I was when my blood pressure was higher.
I sort of forgot why I was rambling, but suffice to say that “obese and unhealthy” do NOT need to go together, and we often have more control (although NOT total control) over health than we do size, when it comes to diet and exercise.
I just want to add, I’m certainly not saying that fat people don’t overeat. Some do. Some don’t. What I think we need to realize is that fat people aren’t fat because they overeat. They might be slightly heavier than they would be if they ate less, but they aren’t going to go from being a size 24 to being a size 10 if they just ate less.
I think part of the reason this myth is so prevalent is because it’s comforting to a lot of fat people. If we’re fat because we overeat, then being fat is optional. We could not be fat, if we just ate differently. If we simply made different choices, no matter how hard we might find it, we’d cease to be fat. I think acknowledging that, no, while there are good reasons to not routinely overeat, doing so won’t make us thin, is a very difficult thing for many people, because it means admitting that being fat is, at least for now, an intractable part of who we are and not something we have any power to significantly change.
I know I’m just adding fuel to the fat-as-choice fire, but I am going to be that troll anyways.
Treehugger had a poll, prompted by the comments on their article about environmental factors that make people fat (http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/07/what-makes-you-fat.php). Many of the comments were of the “fat is a choice, put down the donuts!” variety. The poll question was, then, “Is Being Fat A Personal Choice?”
The results are here: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/07/survey-obesity.php and that’s where my surprise comes in: only 7% of respondents said No, it is NOT a choice. 41% Maybe, 2% other, and 50% said that Yes, it is a choice.
That really makes me wonder a few things. Who reads Treehugger? Is that audience thinner than average? If they’re average Americans then a LOT of people who said it is a choice are, themselves, overweight (BMI > 25).
If the poll were posted here on BFD, and people could respond anonymously without adding their rationale in the comments, how different would the results be here?
I think a lot of fat people think being fat is a choice, and there’s comfort in that, because it means, if they just tried hard enough, they could be thin. If being fat isn’t a choice, then that means they are stuck being fat, barring some twist of fate. And in a society where being fat is seen as so terrible, what fat person wants to believe that?
Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if fat people were MORE likely to see fat as a choice than thin people, since many thin people I know are perfectly aware that they don’t eat perfectly and aren’t super active. They know that their weight is largely the result of genetics rather than personal choice. But since we basically tell fat people that, no matter how much or little they are eating, it is still too much and they are still overeating (or else they wouldn’t be fat), it wouldn’t surprise me in the least to find that many, many fat people believe they overeat and believe being fat is their fault.
What matters isn’t self-perception, because in our society, since we see overeating as the cause of being fat, fat people will naturally assume that they overeat. What would matter is actual research data on the amount of calories people consume, and AFAIK there hasn’t been any valid research that has found that fat people on average eat more than thin people.
I totally sympathize with the commenter! FA blogs can have their dangers in the sense that it makes those of us who stress eat, or don’t portion control very well, or whatever, feel as bad about ourselves as the mainstream media does! (“Am I fat because I overeat? I guess I must not be one of the “real” fats…”)
However, I think the followup to the comment has its problems too…grabbing a handful of Oreos from a bowl at a buffet/barbecue/whatever isn’t binge eating. Or rather, unless you grab a handful of Oreos compulsively every day, it’s not binge eating. It’s SNACKING, in a scenario where it’s expected that you will snack. Everyone does it: thin people just aren’t noticed doing it.
That descriptor of “disordered” eating also presents a problem. While portion control and eating healthily is a good thing as well, unless it’s affecting your life, I don’t think eating a handful of Oreos *once in a while* is that big a deal…it’s the guilt and residual attachment that will lead to a disorder, in one direction or another.
Just like skipping a meal once or twice in a week under particular circumstances isn’t anorexia. However, if you feel super guilty about it, or for that matter are highly praised for it, might it become something to worry about? Sure.
I feel like this society is VERY QUICK to attach “disorder” to anything regarding eating. (Or thinking. Or living.)
However, there is part of that follow up that I absolutely agree with: that moment of panic about how one is seen. To agree with another commenter, in a “bad food” scenario, like a class getting offered donuts, all but the most confident of fats, in my experience, tend to gauge how they should be eating by how everyone else is eating because they don’t want other people to see them as slovenly, lazy, binge-eating fats.
I feel like if anything, the disorders attached to this eating is a deep sense of guilt, resentment, self-doubt and lack of self-worth attached to food. And that WILL lead to food problems, as well as self-worth issues.
We have to be careful not to encourage these within our community, as well as watch for them from without.
I guess it boils down to: for crying out loud – it’s okay to eat some ice cream! Or donuts, or, on the flip side, sushi or tofu. We need to police ourselves less. Which isn’t to say, OMG EAT WHATEVER YOU WANT, GIVE TWO SHITS ABOUT YOUR HEALTH, LIE IN BED ALL DAY. I just mean: let’s stop being anxious and start living more, moderately and without fear.
(By the way, read “handful of Oreos compulsively every day” in my last comment as “WAY MORE THAN A HANDFUL”.)
Re: Amy K – for one thing, I suspect that Treehugger DOES have a more athletic/thinner readership, simply because enviro blogs often target viewers that self identify as hikers, cyclists, climbers etc. I’m not saying fat people aren’t active, but that they may not identify as such because it’s so hard to find adequate equipment as well as a respectful community.
However, it’s true that it’s easier for a lot of fat people to say “it’s my fault” than “it’s my genetics and it’s not going to change, probably.”
I think a major point they’re missing in that poll is that, um, we’re hugely funded by the oil industry over here and rarely have to walk anywhere, so any contributing factors are exacerbated by lack of exercise >_> Almost ANY other country would have more active people than the US. (Eg, people talk about how Japan has no fat people, which is (a)not true and (b)unshocking in a country where the majority are genetically predisposed to a smaller frame AND where people bike, walk, and take trains – which leads to more walking – everywhere).
Anyway, GIANT TANGENT, but thought I’d throw in my .02.
I’ve never posted here, or on any other FA website (I’m a newbie to the movement), but I’d have to say I’m in the camp that doesn’t like seeing fat people portrayed as constantly eating and never exercising. I have personally never known a person, fat or thin, who eats donuts every day and keeps that squeezable cheese in their desk so they can have their assistant shoot it in their mouth when they’re stressed like the character on Drop Dead Diva. So I just think it’s a little silly, and I think it feeds into that idea that people have that ALL fat people overeat ALL the time. On the other hand, she is portrayed as being hard-working, selfless, and smart, so it’s good that she’s being formed into a sympathetic character in that respect. Hopefully they’ll get her a decent wardrobe and give her a sense of humor, so she’s the one making the jokes, not the one we’re laughing at (rather than laughing with her)… then, we’ll be talkin’!
I really think the show would have been funnier and more interesting if the fat girl and the thin girl switched bodies, rather than just having the thin girl come back in the fat girl’s body. But, oh, well!
While portion control and eating healthily is a good thing as well, unless it’s affecting your life, I don’t think eating a handful of Oreos *once in a while* is that big a deal…it’s the guilt and residual attachment that will lead to a disorder, in one direction or another.
And, along with that, “portion control” doesn’t necessarily mean eating the portions prescribed by the food pyramid. I used to work in a bookstore and one day I was reading through Tracy Gold’s book about her experience with anorexia. And part of it that has stuck with me was when she talked about how ridiculous the nutritional education she got while hospitalized was, and how the “recommended” portions of food (a domino sized among of cheese, a deck-of-card sized piece of meat, one golfball of rice) were smaller portions than she ate as an active anorexic. I realized that I don’t know any thin people who tend to always eat their cheese in perfectly domino-sized pieces or who make sure to never eat more than 1/2 a cup of pasta in one sitting. Again, it’s like we’re given the idea that, no matter how big or small or portions are, they are too big.
Ok, so i’m backtracking a little here, but the donuts and “i eat sandwiches” thing didn’t bother me. I admit the heroin junkie squeeze cheese fix thing was a little much…..
But, the thing that drove me nuts was that she couldn’t get up from one lunge??? Uhm, how does she stand up from her chair? Does she really cling for dear life each time? I’m a size 24 and i can do way more than zero lunges. I can understand if they’d had their little talk while doing a couple, and then in comes the assistant and she’s frozen. Okay, at least she did a couple. But not even ONE??! Are ya kidding me?
I agree with the original commenter quoted in the post. I similarly do not like seeing fat people portrayed in one way, even though I know that one of the reasons that I am overweight is that I overeat and don’t exercise enough.
But to me it shadows almost exactly the behavior of the fat person in a classroom full of people who have all just been offered a donut. Just as I do not take the donut for fear of fulfilling a stereotype, I say nothing about how much it sucks to feel like I must be embarrassing to the rest of FA because I’m not hiking every weekend or eating all my Omega-3s and beautifully prepared food or running a marathon.
Sometimes I wonder if the “movement” realizes it has evolved to point of mini-segregation of the type it seeks to discourage.
Don’t get me wrong – as I’ve already said, I dislike the media characterization because I believe it to be untrue of ALL fat people. But to me it’s kind of like Dan Savage not getting why it’s so hypocritical to rail about people caring what he does in his own life and then posting surreptitiously-obtained camera phone pictures of fat people in Michigan and commenting on their probable funnel cake habit and how they *should* do this or *should* do that.
I may not be part of a very loud or oft-vocal group, but we’re still here, you know. Don’t throw us under the bus.
I think the stereotype of the gorging fatty is very much like the old stereotypes for aids. You would see tons of gay men when it was first in the media being portrayed as having it, then it was people with loose morals with sex or drugs.
But aids can come from many different places as we became educated, through transfusions, mistakes with bodily fluids through accidents or medical procedures, you can be born with it from someone who was infected.
Mind you I am not saying that gay=aids, just that at first in the media that was all you would see.
I am saddened myself by the gorging fatty. They tend to make it comical or as repulsive as they can.
I am an emotional eater myself. I was abused as a child and again as an adult. A lot of people end up with addictions to drugs or alcohol from the abuse. I became addicted to food.
When you are an alcoholic or a drug addict you go to a program and stay away from your addiction. You can not stop eating. You are always going to need to use your “drug” as long as you live.
I am 5’11 256.0 pounds. I wear a size 22/24 down from 278 a few months ago and a 26/28 that was tight. I am trying to eat well, exercise but like a few weeks ago my father, the man who abused me contacted me and BAM….binge eating.
I go in bursts of not eating enough, not sleeping enough (insomnia and nightmares thanks dad! I will send you my therapy bills later :P)to eating, eating, eating like pacman from the moment I go home to the time I cry myself to sleep.
Am I disgusting and a joke because of this? Is it completely my fault and laziness? Am I a stereo type or a slightly different individual who may never be exactly a super model through some crap luck in life?
I agree with Kristin. A lot of times fat activists seem to be starting from the base point of, we are all healthy and active fatties who don’t overeat and love exercise just as much as any thin person, we just aren’t genetically predisposed to be thin. Posters like Lori JUST AREN’T LISTENING when people who want to be part of the movement say, “I KNOW I could be healthier/thinner if I didn’t eat as much or at better, and exercised. My size IS a choice, or at least a direct consequence of my current behavior.”
Why does the answer to the question “ZOMG why are you a big fat slob?!?!?11” have to be “genetic predisposition, etc. etc.” Why can’t it be, “None of your damned business” or even “Because I love myself this way”?
Posters like Lori JUST AREN’T LISTENING when people who want to be part of the movement say, “I KNOW I could be healthier/thinner if I didn’t eat as much or at better, and exercised. My size IS a choice, or at least a direct consequence of my current behavior.â€
No, it’s not that I’m not listening. It’s that our perceptions aren’t always right. There is NO evidence that fat people are fat because they overeat. That doesn’t mean they might not be 10-20 pounds lighter if they ate less; it certainly doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be healthier if they ate a better diet or exercised more. It does mean that, no matter how much somebody might think that if they just put down the donuts, they’d be thin, it’s just not reality for the vast majority of people.
I think this statement is particularly telling:
we are all healthy and active fatties who don’t overeat and love exercise just as much as any thin person
The thing is, a LOT of thin people don’t love exercise. And, many thin people overeat, at least occasionally. The idea that all thin people are eating healthy diets and exercising regularly is just flat-out wrong. Thin people aren’t thin because they are doing the right things, and fat people aren’t fat because they are doing the wrong things.
There are absolutely, absolutely fat people who are inactive, unhealthy, and who overeat. There are also think people who do the same. And, in both cases, the people who are inactive and overeat and probably at the higher end of their natural weight range, and may even have pushed themselves a bit above it. But, nobody eats themselves from 140 pounds to 240 pounds, or from 200 pounds to 400 pounds. We’ve never been able to make a thin person permanently fat by making them eat too much or keeping them inactive.
So if somebody overeats and would feel better if they stopped, or doesn’t exercise and would feel better if they did, by all means do so. It might be why you are sluggish. It might be why you are having some health problems. It might be part of why you are tense or depressed. But, it’s highly unlikely that it’s why you are fat. And, if you start being more active and eating better, there’s a good chance you’ll have more energy, be in a better mood, and be in better health, but it’s not very likely you’ll be thin.
I understand what you are saying in that yes, for a certain percentage (a majority even) of people, healthy and active does not equal society’s standards for “thin.” Amen. But people are self-reporting to you that they overeat, and don’t exercise, and your response is they are self-hating, brainwashed by the “powers that be,” and even worse, uninformed about their own behaviors and choices, because it’s apparently so awful to CHOOSE to be fat that we have to pretend it’s impossible. Is there really no room in the FA movement for people who, heaven forbid, like to eat and hate to sweat?
I’m glad we’re having this discussion, because it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.
Proviso: I’m a somewhat overweight woman married to a somewhat more overweight man. I can and do “pass for thin.” And I absolutely DESPISE derogatory representations of fatness wherever I encounter them, especially in visual media. While I fall kind of in the middle on the base issue (the extent to which fatness OR health is any kind of choice), I do not fall in the middle on Drop Dead Diva, which makes my head explode on this issue. No one who is not cruel or hateful (racist, sexist, Dick Cheney) deserves to be mocked and pilloried in this way in national discourse, no matter how many donuts they have or have not eaten. Default position: respect and courtesy for all, and that means ALL. Except maybe Dick Cheney and people like him, because torture breaks the social contract in every conceivable way.
Ahem That said, I have been thinking a lot about fat people who do overeat substantially (whatever that means to them) and don’t exercise much, or at all. Yes, absolutely, some thin people do that too. But where does that knowledge leave us? Probably everyone here can take it as a given that courtesy and respect should not be dependent on some outside party judging our lifestyles–check. We know that. We get that, or I hope we do. There are no good and bad fatties, except as determined by their personal levels of kindness or cruelty, a criterion which applies to everyone, not just the fat.
But beyond that, what? Does FA maybe encourage people who could benefit from increased exercise and greater donut avoidance not to try those things? Does it steer us away from Health at Any Size, because it focuses on accepting ourselves instead of changing things about ourselves that are maybe hurting us? Does it do that just because thin people are culturally allowed to hurt themselves invisibly, instead of in the public eye? II wonder about this very much. Obviously, the alternative is not shame and humiliation! But Oreos are not meant to be eaten by handfuls, either, on any occasion. Oreos eaten by handfuls will do their best to make us sick, fat or thin. So will donuts. The western industrial cultures are teeming with foods which send our risk for all kinds of physical misery right through the roof. Would it hurt FA as a movement to say, “we value each other for who we are, we are not the food police, we are not here to talk about how many donuts you have eaten, we recognize how painful eating disorders are, and we insist on respect and courtesy for all…and yet we also encourage everyone with access to look into eating fewer processed foods and finding more fun ways to exercise”? To acknowledge formally, as a movement (lots of individuals do this already) that we want to see every eating disorder (including the ones that mostly afflict thin people) compassionately but also medically treated? To say, “okay, we accept ourselves as imperfect beings, but we also espouse trying to live as strong and healthy a life as you can manage within your personal circumstances”?
This is a tough line to walk, admittedly. It’s easy to see (even here) how it can tip over into blame and shame, good vs. bad, fearing that if we back off one step from “accept us as good and great and amazing like we are”, we may find ourselves back at “accept us only if we meet certain good-fatty criteria.” I don’t want us back there.
But I have trouble with good-great-and-amazing-as-is, too. I feel like this world often involves trying to make ourselves better than we are–not in a crazy Puritanical way, not in a thinner-and-richer way, but in a stronger-and-happier way. A way that makes self-acceptance mean more, because it reflects a sense of true accomplishment.
Again, I don’t mean dieting, on which I’ve largely given up. I mean trying to live the best life we can and making conscious choices about what that means. For many of us, it means, in part, trying not to binge, trying not to eat what we don’t really want, trying to make our psychological issues a little less lacerating. I think that’s important. I wish FA said more about this and less time defending our right to eat processed foods that will try to make us sick. Of course we have that right; but do we want it? And do we want it to define us?
Because, I have to tell you, I’m not a particularly amazing person. I’m not a particularly beautiful person, in nearly any sense of that fraught word. This isn’t crappy self-esteem talking, either, because I’m proud of the accomplishments I have; it’s the knowledge that, statistically, not everyone can be amazing. What I am is a normal person, and a person who struggles–in many ways–to be just a little better than I have to be. And it makes me uncomfortable when FA implies that that’s not necessary, or not important.
My answer to “what if we don’t put down the donuts?” is, right now, “nothing.” If we don’t put down the donuts, we still deserve courtesy and respect. FA is right to demand those things for all people (who are not cruel and hateful.) But maybe FA could also acknowledge that donuts are not materially improving our quality of life; at best, they anesthetise us in a very painful world. Sometimes that’s the most important thing, but it doesn’t compare to the pleasure of knowing we’re living the best lives that we, ourselves, can manage.
In my experience, accepting your body at the size it is makes it far easier to make better food choices and to be more active. Because, if you are exercising for weight loss, when that doesn’t happen–as in most cases it won’t and as in almost all cases it won’t permanently–you give up, assuming either it’s pointless or you aren’t doing it right. When you are making healthier food choices in the hopes of losing weight, when after a month your weight loss stops even though you are still controlling portions and still eating more veggies and whole grains, it’s easy to assume that either it’s not working or that you’re doing something wrong. I think many, many people lose out on the enormous benefits, both physically and emotionally, of a healthy diet and regular exercise because they are doing both in the hopes of weight loss, and give up when that just doesn’t happen.
I also think it’s very important not to use the word “binge” lightly. I’ve fallen prey to the belief that, when I eat a big bowl of ice cream one night, or when my husband and I finish off a bag of chips in one sitting, I’ve “binged.” I haven’t. I’ve overeaten while snacking. Having lived with a bulimic, I know that binge eating is much, much different from the kind of mindless overeating that everybody I know occassionally engages in. I think far too many fat people (and women in general) assume they are binge eating when in fact they are simply eaten more than they would have if they’d been eating more consciously. I’m not denying that some people, fat and thin, indeed binge eat, but I highly doubt that every woman I’ve heard use the word “binge” actually did have a binge, where she was consuming thousands of calories, eating to the point of physical discomfort, and eating things she didn’t even want because she felt compelled to. That’s binge eating, and it undermines the experience of those who actually do it when we use it to refer to the kind of overeating most people sometimes engage in.
I would also deny that an occasional donut can’t improve our quality of life, just like an occasional slice of cheesecake or bowl of fettucine alfredo can. Enjoying food doesn’t mean anesthesizing yourself, and to assume that the only pleasure one can derive from a donut is anesthesization from some problem we don’t want to face is, I think, wrong. There can be a pleasure in having your husband come in with donuts on a lazy weekend morning, and enjoying them with your family. Food is a good gift, and one we can enjoy: donuts and processed food and asparagus and sushi and tofu and all. To assume that the only way ice cream can enrich our lives is because we are somehow using it to stuff down bad feelings is to buy into the idea that taking pleasure in food is bad, and anybody who has ever seen joyful little kids dig into a bowl of ice cream knows that it’s not about stuffing feelings but about taking pleasure in what is indeed a good gift. That’s not to say a donut every morning is the healthiest way to go, but that a morning donut once in a while can absolutely be a part of a healthy diet, and taking pleasure in a donut once in a while can be not only fine, but a healthy acknowledgement of the many sensory pleasures the world can bring.
Lori-
Actually Lori, you’re not really listening at all.
“Honestly, I think that’s buying into the self-hate the powers that be want fat people to have. You might be obese and unhealthy AND overeat and not exercise, but it does NOT mean the two are related.”
Nowhere in my comment did I ever say that I hated my body, me and the body have been through a lot. The marriage was built to last thank you very much. Nor did I say that being obese and unhealthy were exactly related. They can be, but like I said, it’s mostly in the genes, not the jeans ;).
I should not have to defend my comment, insignificant as it was, yet I am. And this is EXACTLY what the blog post was talking about.
You know nothing about me nor my health problems or what’s causing them. And for ME the two ARE related. Does that mean that all fat people are unhealthy? Fuck no! I’m smart enough to know that, the media and the diet companies are not….or atleast don’t want others to be that smart. And until we stop being a thin grandizing society, and realize that hey! Fat people are just like normal people! Except they’re bigger…..and cooler ;p that won’t change.
Not only is Lori not listening, she’s preaching no-shitters like they are revolutionary ideas, and not answering direct questions.
Does FA maybe encourage people who could benefit from increased exercise and greater donut avoidance not to try those things? Does it steer us away from Health at Any Size, because it focuses on accepting ourselves instead of changing things about ourselves that are maybe hurting us?
I have to respond to you, Cat, because I feel like FA hasn’t steered me towards mediocrity, but has encouraged me to be a “stronger and happier person” precisely because it teaches me to accept myself. I can be stronger and happier precisely because I don’t HAVE to be ideal. FA doesn’t steer people away from taking care of themselves, it just encourages them to do so because they care about themselves, not in order to live up to the fantasy of thinness.
Of course, sometimes a lot of the stories in the FA community espouse the Ideal Fatty who exercises everyday and eats fresh fruit and veggies at every meal and cooks every meal and only eats free-range organic everything — so on and so on*… which is frustrating, I think, for people who may have genuine issues with food and disordered eating, who can’t really fit into *this* ideal either, and who are now doubly frustrated because they are being (sometimes indirectly, sometimes directly) told that they’re the reason people hate fatties. Their reality may be to binge eat like this main character, and then to come to an FA community and read only “How dare the media only portray fat people like that, millions of us are GOOD UPSTANDING CITIZENS who never binge ever, ever, EVER!” — has got to suck. (Not that that’s what it sounds like all the time in the FA world — just sometimes). Maybe we’re out of the habit of beating ourselves up, but we still aren’t out of the habit of treating food and exercise as a moral issue. It’s a hard one to break.
THat’s why I liked the comment above that said we should be taking offense at Binge Eating as a comic device, a way of saying, “She is fat and she eats so much, HILARIOUS!” That sort of treatment is rarely done with an eating disorder like anorexia, which is always treated as a Super Serious disorder. That could be because the thin waify girl is easier to portray as a victim of a disease beyond her control. A fat girl, you know, couldn’t possibly be suffering the same way — the only control she needs is self control, am i right? /sarcasm
*one of the “so-ons” that is particularly needling to me is the Ideal Fatty who has found the Perfect, Loving Partner and is in a Happy Marriage and is having tons of sex. Doesn’t always happen, hasn’t happened for me. One, I’m not super-interested in marriage. Two, I don’t have a lot of partners to choose from: Compared to my thin friends, I have had fewer sexual partners, have a harder time finding a relationship that is satisfying and wherein I don’t feel like I have to lose weight to be worthy, and tend to not meet a lot of guys who are interested in dating me — though they do like having my “friendship.” Friendship, schmendship, I just want to get my bone on!
You know nothing about me nor my health problems or what’s causing them. And for ME the two ARE related. Does that mean that all fat people are unhealthy?
At what point did I even imply that health problems and diet and exercise have no relation? Certainly many people would be healthier if they exercised more and ate better. However, that is entirely different from the idea that somebody is fat because they overeat. Unless what’s making them fat is 20 pounds, it’s extremely unlikely that changing their diet or exercise habits (unless they opt for prolonged self-starvation) is going to make them thin.
I just don’t think people need to sit back and go, “Sure, you’re right. Even though it goes against all the evidence we have, you’re fat because you overeat.” You aren’t. You might be fat AND overeat, but it’s not why you are fat. And, when I see comments like “FA is wrong is saying that all fat people enjoy being active and eating well just like thin people do,” then that does raise huge red flags for me that somebody does indeed both have false ideas about the way fat and thin people live and a whole bunch of self-hatred.
Lori- “FA is wrong is saying that all fat people enjoy being active and eating well just like thin people do,â€
Seriously, where the fuck in my comment do you see that? If I ever actually said that then I sincerely apologize because I do consider myself part of the FA movement and to be very fat accepting. I mean shit, I better be, I am fat after all.
Secondly I’m calling troll on your whole little replies here. It seems that you enjoy nothing more then disregarding someone’s whole comment, picking one question or excerpt out of said comment and then promptly forgetting about what you picked and going on a completely uncalled for tirade against the comment WHILE sometimes iterating exactly what the comment said. It’s a complete mind fuck and I congratulate you because I almost fell for it, but rest assured my hackles are no longer raised even a quarter inch.
So you seem to think that I am saying FA is wrong and I apparently hate myself. Well good for you, but you’re wrong. Ending of reply, end of conversation.
There’s definitely a small contingent of FA avocates who abhor the very idea of “bad food,” and I don’t get how that jibes with the Health At Every Size concept. Sure, broccoli and Ho-Hos are probably both morally neutral, but nutritionally I have no idea what the problem is with accepting that steamed broc is a better food choice than the Ho-Ho.
Some of them seem to have a pretty genetic-deterministic view toward both fatness and health, and you can get the impression that they don’t think food choices or exercise have anything to do with health.
And yes, expecting all Good Fat People to eat organic vegetables five times a day and do Pilates three times a week is pretty unfair and unrealistic– most thin people don’t do that, either.
There’s a class and race issue involved, too, I suspect; much of the stuff we collectively think of as “healthy living” is sort of a product of our white upper middle class; do these people really get to dictate to everyone else what Healthy Behavior looks like?
I mean, maybe they’ve really got it all figured out. They’ve had the leisure time and resources to devote to the pursuit of Living Well for quite a few years now.
But maybe they’re kind of wrong about some important things, too.
There’s definitely a small contingent of FA avocates who abhor the very idea of “bad food,†and I don’t get how that jibes with the Health At Every Size concept. Sure, broccoli and Ho-Hos are probably both morally neutral, but nutritionally I have no idea what the problem is with accepting that steamed broc is a better food choice than the Ho-Ho.
Claire, that’s the point. The entire “Good Fatty, Bad Fatty”, “Good Food, Bad Food” dichotomy is more of a moral issue than a nutrition issue. Obviously, broccoli is more nutritious than a Ho-Ho, but the moral baggage that comes with choosing one over the other is where the issue lies.
Good fatties eat good food. Bad fatties eat bad food. Good fatties exercise an hour a day. Bad fatties sit on the couch with their thumbs up their asses. Good fatties help the FA movement by showing that fat people can eat right and exercise and still be fat. Bad fatties set the FA movement back because they fulfill the stereotypes by going to buffets and not being able to do a single sit-up.
Do you see where this is going?
My question is, quite simply, what does FA have to do with why someone’s fat?
FA, to me (someone who used to be “10-20 pounds overweight” and has since lost about 80 through (gasp) diet and exercise), is about saying that someone’s worth as a human being has nothing to do with whether or not their fat, dieting, gaining, or any other -ing. Period.
This says nothing whatsoever about why someone’s fat – something that, in my admittedly slanted experience (and basic chemistry), generally has quite a lot to do with how much someone eats and how much energy they burn (thank you, first law of thermodynamics). If someone claims to gain weight (or not lose weight) while exercising to burn more calories than they take in (a very extreme case), they’re mistaken, either about the calories in or the calories out. Period.
Some people burn calories at rest faster than others due to internal body chemistry. The caloric cost of exercise is fairly easily proven (again, simple maths). The caloric value of food is also easily proven, although often dramatically underestimated.
FA, to me, is about removing that from the “value” equation. Not about denying how our bodies work by, somehow, claiming that fat people are “magical” or “special”. And that’s a Good Thing.