fat acceptance Articles

I’ve thought long and hard about how to write a post about the #ashamed hashtag you’ve seen a lot of in the last week or two. In the event that you haven’t seen the discussion surrounding ashamed, let me bring you up to speed.

Earlier this year a Children’s Hospital in Georgia started a campaign revolving around childhood obesity. I’ve posted some of their videos here and here. In addition to incredibly powerful videos there are billboards that accompany them. The billboards and videos feature real life overweight children talking about the real life issues that obesity causes. The issues are social (loneliness) and physical (heart disease, diabetes and more). The videos (watch them) are presented with neither judgment nor over dramatization. The fact that these children are in physical and emotional pain is dramatic enough, nothing more is needed.

There is a campaign to have the Children’s Hospital take down these billboards, the belief is that these billboards bring shame to children who are fat. Many top bloggers are bothered by these ads. Leading the charge is Leah Segedie.

Leah Segedie, who is the brains behind Mamavation, finds these ads to be riddled with shame. Leah is undoubtedly an authority in the weight loss arena as she battled depression along with her weight and has had a wonderful lifestyle change. She lost a hundred pounds and found her voice. Leah would be the FIRST person I would talk to if I needed a lifestyle overhaul. Leah is also an incredibly compassionate and passionate woman, she is bright and articulate, she is educated and she is charismatic. You get the picture? Leah is a woman I respect, enjoy and look up to. As a rule I do not call her judgment into question.

The women behind the #ashamed movement have it wrong. I don’t believe for a single solitary second that an ad campaign will make these children feel ashamed for being overweight. I believe with all my heart that the fat that’s covering these children’s bodies might make them ashamed. It should be noted that the fat covering their bodies also makes them ill and it’s much easier to die of diabetes or heart disease than of shame. Further, these ads are empowering. In the state of Georgia 40% of the children are overweight. Georgia is at the heart of the obesity epidemic and it’s imperative that they become forerunners in the fight against obesity.

By talking about fat, rather than whispering, some of the stigma has to leave. It’s not like no one can see. I’ve gained 15 pounds in the last two years, everyone can see it. If I only talk about it while whispering in private it’s not like people won’t notice. One of the many goals of this campaign is to have parents actually acknowledge that their children are overweight. It’s not baby fat, it’s just fat.

Having too much fat on your body is a medical issue. Yes, it can become a social one, and yes, it can be emotionally crippling. Not talking about the fact that children are overweight won’t stop them from hurting. Not discussing the fact that adults are robbing children of their health when they don’t provide proper nutrition and exercise won’t make anyone thinner or healthier.

When I was a teen everyone was worried about self esteem. There was this ridiculous notion that every child should feel good about themselves. Ted Bundy had incredibly high self esteem. What was missing was giving children the opportunity to feel good about themselves by presenting them with tools to reach the goals they wanted to achieve. The whole give a man fish or teach him to fish thing. If you don’t want children to feel ashamed let’s give them a reason to feel proud, give them a goal they can reach like walking a mile or riding their bike to school for a week. Teach kids to put together a healthy lunch or how to stop eating before you’re full and then to wait twenty minutes before eating again. If you want children to feel good give them some tools, forget advocating against healthcare workers who are trying to save lives.

Some feelings will be hurt. I assure you those feelings were hurt long ago, and if it takes an ad campaign in a region where children are gifted disease by their diets then so be it. I say let’s have hurt feelings, because the folks who are going to look at these commercials and feel like they’ve been sucker punched are going to be the parents. The kids already knew how they felt, it’s not a mystery to them.

I support Strong4Life and I’m sad that we’ve reached this place. I hope that Georgia can be the canary in the coal mine for all of us and that we can all love our children enough to make changes that will keep everyone living happier, fuller lives. Every part of me believes the women behind #ashamed have their hearts in the right place. I think they just missed the point.

When I watched this video one of the many striking moments was the bowl full of candy in the classroom.

I love that we’re finally acknowledging the link from fatty and sugary foods to obesity and morbidity. Our bodies were built to survive famine, but it’s clear that we don’t survive the feast nearly as well.

According to CBS News Paula Deen is expected to reveal today that she has type two Diabetes as well as a partnership with an unnamed drug manufacturer.

It’s brilliant really. Ms. Deen hawks fatty foods encouraging an obese America to add more butter and cream cheese (don’t worry about all that organic stuff). America dutifully cheers every time she drops a stick of butter into a pot of slop and BAM (to riff on Emeril)! America eats their way into type two diabetes and Ms. Deen has a cure all for them [insert life sustaining product here].

Maybe next she can partner with Allegan and their kiddie Lap-Band?

Childhood obesity gets me riled up. Since parents bring groceries into the home, are in charge of media consumption and after school activities I see childhood obesity as being an issue that lands squarely on the parents’ lap.

Clearly there are a few children in the world who have medical issues and for whom weight gain is unavoidable. For the rest of our children they are obese because of parental neglect. It’s horrible when you’ve failed your child. I have failed mine in quite a few ways, recently medically, and I’ll talk about that another day.

Go to your facebook page, someone has posted a class picture. This is mine from 1979. I was in the fourth grade. I’d don’t see one fat kid. It’s not about looking good or being cute, you’re looking at a couple dozen healthy kids. Does this look like a fourth grade classroom today?

Kudos to Georgia for finally taking care of it’s children. Let’s hope that the state provides them with healthful school lunches and joyful physical education.

Fat acceptance and pandering to self esteem is killing your children. Just watch these videos made by five brave kids. If you want to help a child worry less about their feelings short term and worry more about their health in the short and long term. Kids aren’t stupid, they know they’re fat and they need help. They need a whole community to change around them.

Be the change.

A post (it’s a meme really) has made it’s way around Facebook. It’s a viral sensation written by a woman of presumably healthy weight.

I understand that many of us aren’t at the weight we would like to be at. I further understand that at least one reader has a child with Prader Willi syndrome and that more than a few of us take steroids like Prednisone. If you’re in that category, bummer.

Here’s the reality, this fat lady on the chair you see below, she does have a pretty face. Beautiful even, what she doesn’t have is a healthy body. To say that she couldn’t have a better life and better health with some of that fat missing from her belly is to lie to everyone.

Right now we are fat. We are globally fat and our children have shorter life expectancies than we do. We are eating ourselves into a Wall E type existence.

If you’re my age (41) go look at your class pictures and find the fat kid. The ONE. There was always one fat kid, and I’m guessing when you see those pictures that fat kid is probably more typical looking today than you’d expect. Now take a look at any classroom in America and look at what we’ve done to our children.

Go look in a third grade classroom. Look at their pale skin and their doughy stomachs. Check for video games and cell phones. We want free range chickens, but gawd forbid our precious little princes should walk to school.

Ladies, I get that it’s hard to maintain a healthy weight. No one loves rich food more than I do. I know it’s hard to walk into the gym to try and become a mermaid. Let’s face it, I’m 41, my ass fell, but that doesn’t mean I get to sit on it all day.

Exercise more, eat a little less, spend more time naked and for the love of all things holy please stop pretending that fat is adorable. It’s killing you.

As much as I’m sure that Delphine Feiberg meant to tell everyone to love themselves, she’s doing you all a disservice. This model has a beautiful face, no doubt, and as wonderful as it is to open a magazine and have someone look like you, it’s deadly to pretend like we can’t do better.

Like Delphine I am not commenting on how anyone looks. This isn’t about fashion or being skinny. I’m not interested in discussions about anorexia. According to The American Anorexia and Bulimia Association 1,000 anorexics die each year. According to the surgeon general in 2003 (we’ve gotten bigger since then) more than 300,000 people died from their obesity.

In a dozen years we’ll look back on these fat affirming messages and wonder what people were thinking. These images are as life affirming as a Virginia Slims ad.

And now the meme:

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I can hear gum snapping at a hundred yards. I don’t mind people chewing gum around me, so long as their mouths are closed, but gum snapping is like nails on a chalkboard times 100 for me. Gum snapping is the most whorish (legal) public activity possible.

This evening us Gottliebs attended Phantom of the Opera on Broadway at the Majestic Theater. It was a very good show (not great, but I’m not doing a review today), and the kids loved it.

I had a few issues with the people around us.

Behind me and to my right was a family of four that included two teenage girls. For the first 40 minutes of the show all I could hear was gum snapping. When I turned around for the third time with my finger at my lips they finally got it. Apparently this family of cud chewers is no longer able to hear each other’s mastication. Perhaps it’s so constant that it’s become white noise.

The last half hour of the first act was lovely, and mostly silent from behind me.

Then came the intermission.

Apparently America is so in love with our expanding waistlines that vendors must come to your seat baseball park style to sell you licorice, skittles, M&M’s and peanuts. We are a nation of lazy, fat gluttons who are unable to sit in a seat and passively watch other people entertain us without piling high fructose corn syrup, sugar, fat and salt into our gaping mouths.

The man behind me and to my left yelled out to his wife, “Get me some peanuts.”

I wanted to throttle him. I knew what was coming, when I saw his chins and giant thighs spilling over the seat I knew I was going to have a second act of chomping, slurping and throat clearing. Peanuts leave your throat scratchy, even if you’re a professional eater, like the man behind me appeared to be. He met my expectations and then some. The second act was music, singing, the sounds of snack bags being opened, and a dozen Americans chewing with their mouths open. Lovely.

I am curious what the theaters are thinking. I recall spending my childhood sneaking a half roll of butterscotch lifesavers into the Philharmonic. I don’t know when we decided that food has to be a part of every experience, or why it’s appropriate to sit munching in what should be a silent room. I’d pay extra for a theater that didn’t serve food in any form.

I keep hearing a bunch of nonsense about how some people are fat and healthy (simply. not. true.), and how their fat doesn’t impede on our rights.

Our culture of loving fat is spilling over into every part of our lives.