“It’s Dead, Jim!”
February 5, 2008
“It’s dead on arrival at my desk.”
- Mississippi House Public Health and Human Services Committee Chairman Steve Holland (D - Plantersville) concerning Mississippi House Bill 282
ISAA would like to thank all of you for your participation in this activism effort. The Mississippi lawmakers heard you loud and clear! Ding, dong, the bill is dead!
ISAA would also like to thank NAAFA and COFTA for their participation in bringing attention to this ill-advised bill.
ISAA Condemns Proposed Mississippi Weight Based Segregation Law
February 2, 2008
Released on ISAA website and to the public on February 1, 2008
AUSTIN, TX - The International Size Acceptance Association (ISAA) opposes and condemns Mississippi House Bill 282, proposed by Representative W. T. Mayhall, Jr. of District 40, which is “an act to prohibit certain food establishments from serving food to any person who is obese.” In the unlikely possibility that this legislation actually passes, it would allow restaurants to refuse service to anyone with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30 or more. The bill does not specify how restaurants should check for BMI but it does state that “the State Department of Health shall monitor the food establishments to which this section applies for compliance with the provisions of this section, and may revoke the permit of any food establishment that repeatedly violates the provisions of this section.”
“This bill is wholesale legalized segregation based on weight,” said ISAA Founder and Director Allen Steadham. “It tells restaurants to choke their own business while discriminating against potential patrons. It is obscene and shows to what extent the obsession over obesity has reached. This clearly steps over a line and should be called for what it is.”
ISAA recommends that the public contact the Mississippi legislature and urge them to oppose this bill and Representative Mayhall to urge him to withdraw this bill.
Representative W.T. Mayhall
Home: 662.393.2069
Cell: 901.734.9540
Email: tmayhall@house.ms.gov
ISAA strongly suggests that the public exercise courtesy when contacting Representative Mayhall and the Mississippi legislature.
ISAA was created in 1997 with the mission to is to promote size acceptance and fight weight-based discrimination throughout the world by means of advocacy and visible, lawful actions. ISAA has a philosophy of self-respect, maintainable fitness and encourages healthy food choices.
Address questions or comments to ISAA Director Allen Steadham at directisaa@gmail.com
- 30 -
Mississippi HOUSE BILL NO. 282: No Fat Person May Dine Here
February 2, 2008
Mississippi House Bill 282, full text, was introduced in the 2008 Mississippi legislative session on Friday by Representative W.T. Mayhall, Jr., a retired pharmaceutical salesman with DuPont-Merk. Its co-authors are Bobby Shows, a businessman, and John Read, a pharmacist.
This proposed bill would make discrimination and segregation based on a person’s body size and composition legal in the state of Mississippi and needs to be addressed by any and all Americans who value their own liberties and rights.
Of course, whenever there is a contact made with a legislator or any other public official, politeness is very important to the message.
As a disclaimer, neither ISAA nor I are advocating hate mail, vandalism, or anything else illegal or ethically questionable in posting this info. Again, please be polite, informative, and as brief as possible when contacting these honorable, albeit misguided in this proposed bill, legislators. Thank you.
So, the contact information is as follows:
Lead Author: Representative W. T. Mayhall, Jr. (R)
Capitol:
P. O. Box 1018
Jackson, MS 39215
tmayhall@house.ms.gov
Co-Author: Representative Bobby Shows (D)
Capitol:
P. O. Box 1018
Jackson, MS 39215
bshows@house.ms.gov
Co-Author: Representative John Read (R)
Capitol:
P. O. Box 1018
Jackson, MS 39215
jread@house.ms.gov
My personal email to these honorable legislators:
Mississippi HB 282
The Continuing Adventures of the Super-Duper-Sized Woman
By Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw
Daphne, the Super-Duper-Sized Woman, has sat through many CME (Continuing Medical Education) courses in the patient rooms of her various doctors through the years and has heard that many other fat people of all varieties of size have also sat through similar lectures. So, since the many doctors think it very important to spend countless minutes each appointment to teach the following lessons for a fat person’s own good and because most of the doctors seem to think that fat people have not paid attention, not realized the seriousness of their issues with us, or maybe are unable to listen (probably due to too much fat clogging our ears,) Daphne, the SDSW, thought it would be helpful to write out a list of lecture notes so that all will know whether or not we have listened, understood, and considered these words of supposed wisdom and truth on the issue of our weight, specifically the issue of our large supply of adipose tissue.
The following list will be in no particular order of importance. It will simply list lecture points. No comment on these points will be made at this time. This listing does not mean any agreement with the points or any disagreement with the points. Furthermore, these lecture notes do not mean the method of speaking to the fat patient is respectful or warranted. It is simply making sure the doctors know we have heard them properly… and perhaps have now passed this part of the course finally and can move on to more helpful aspects of our doctor visits. Well, Daphne, the SDSW, can dream, can’t she?!
So, without further ado, here are Daphne’s notes from her doctors’ lecture series entitled “Morbid Obesity for Morons, Specifically You (the Super-Duper-Sized Woman:”
1) My weight is killing me, and my death is to be soon… even within the next five years (endlessly renewable as five year allotments pass.)
2) I am in denial by refusing to go into hospice by thinking I am not near death when it is obvious I am dying soon due to being so very fat.
3) I lie continuously and consistently about what I do and don’t eat.
4) I obviously do overeat but refuse to admit it.
5) Either I am a pathological liar about food and weight issues, or I am delusional or both.
6) Maybe I am unaware of portion sizes, caloric values, the glycemic index, or other fine points of nutrition.
7) I am apparently ignorant of the research and proof (and I am instructed to go read up on it if I am unconvinced) of how my weight is killing me and need to read more research on it since I am very determined to stay so huge.
8 ) I have never considered or even thought about the possibility of losing weight.
9) I am incredibly lazy and either sit around or lie around all day, refusing to move. But, some doctors do add that if they had even an extra 100 pounds on them, they wouldn’t want to do anything either.
10) I need less self-acceptance and more losing weight.
11) A 1000 or even less calorie diet is healthy for me because the alternative is death.
12) I need the gastric bypass surgery to make all my troubles go away. In fact, each doctor knows several people who have lost down to their normal weight and have no need for their former medicines. Some patients have even been cured of diabetes this way.
13) Obviously I have no self-control or will power, so the only hope is the gastric bypass.
14) It is my fault that none of the medical equipment, none of the doors, and none of the facilities are accessible or accurate for me because of my size, but I am to struggle through the agonizing pain physically and emotionally as well as paying the many fees for the services that don’t fit me and/or do not help me. After all I need the exercise anyway.
15) Doctors hate seeing their patients, specifically me, killing themselves, but this is a part of the job, alas.
16) Only I can choose what I do or don’t put into my mouth. If I would choose to eat less, I would lose weight.
17) I need to exercise and move about or die.
1 
Anything I say or do that does not support the theory that my weight is killing me and is caused by my deliberate and willful choices is either fabricated or an obvious misinterpretation of whatever happened.
19) I am too stubborn about medicines and the side effects. All medicines have side effects. But if I choose not to take a medicine, a cholesterol lowering medicine for example because it caused jaundice in me, then that is my choice. However, I should be aware that my choice is killing me. And, what is the point of taking a fasting lipids blood test if I am not going to be taking any medicines anyway?
20) Since I am in a lot of pain, I need pain medicine not a firm diagnosis of what exactly is going wrong to cause the pain since I have already been told that my pains are caused by my huge amount of adipose tissue crushing and killing me.
21) My too tight control of my diabetes is hindering my losing weight.
22) Every condition is caused by and exacerbated by my fatness.
23) I need psychiatric help because I am so huge and determined to stay that way.
24) No professional medical person – nurse, OT, PT, practical nurse, nutritionist, dietician, or social worker who comes to my home and sees my conditions here has a true picture of how I eat or not eat and, hence, have all been brainwashed by me to lie for me concerning these matters.
Other entries in the continuing adventures of the Super-Duper-Sized Woman can be found here:
Adventures of the Super-Duper-Sized Woman
Pushing Jack Back Down the Beanstalk: So, I’m Fat; Must I Be Made Constantly Afraid?
Your Friends Make You Fat…Not!
July 27, 2007
The newest tidbits of expertise on obesity from one segment of the medical world published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) (vol 357, 370-379, 2007) are, not surprisingly, painfully flawed and guilty of the same underlying prejudice against fat people that plagues the medical community in general. If you break down their findings, two dangerous messages come across loud and clear:
1. Being around fat people will increase your chances of getting fat, so you better not hang out with fat people; and
2. If you’re fat, you’re going to lose all your friends if you don’t lose weight, so you better get thin as soon as possible!
Even the Chicago Sun-Times had a problem with the new research in this article. They concluded that the NEJM research “may also contribute to prejudice against overweight people.” I agree.
The new research hangs on that blemish of science, the Body Mass Index (BMI), which has never been an indicator of health and the research also makes sweeping generalizations about social networking influencing eating habits.
Common sense always provides answers where research fails, because research can be influenced by the researchers’ assumptions and prejudices.
Common sense says your friends don’t make choices for you. You decide what what you want to do with your life, even if you decide to agree to what your friends suggest you do. The assumption the medical community wants you to make is that all fat people make poor food choices and overeat with abandon, so you’d better get away from their social influence or by gum, they’ll make you lazy, ugly and stupid, too!
It’s a silly assumption but too many doctors and medical professionals make leaps of logic like that every day.
Common sense says everyone is an individual and individuals make individual choices. It may be hard for some people to understand but people of all shapes and sizes can be fit, eat healthy and be productive and active members of society. By the same reasoning, people of ALL shapes and sizes (including thin ones) can also lack fitness, have un-healthy habits and not be productive and active members of society. For some reason, some people don’t like to hear that — but it’s the truth.
Common sense says that you choose your friends based on whether they’re good friends or not.
There’s another term for choosing your friends based on appearance…it’s called “discrimination.”
New PODWOM: Paul Delacroix Interview
July 24, 2007
PODWOM - Podcast Without Measure
http://www.podwom.com
RSS Feed - http://feeds.feedburner.com/Podwom
The theme of this PODWOM Show is “An Hour With Paul Delacroix.” This show is 57 minutes long (54 MB download) and covers everything from Paul’s founding of the Middlefaire Renaissance Festival (now in it’s second year) to his now famous art of BBWs and upcoming comic book art to size acceptance and discrimination to the future role of the internet in society!
Some may wonder, what is a podcast? Essentially, it is an internet-based broadcast using the MP3 format. Podcasts can also be subscribed to and downloaded to portable MP3 players like iPods.
PODWOM is the abbreviation for Podcast Without Measure, the podcast edition of Without Measure (WOM), the official electronic magazine for the International Size Acceptance Association (ISAA).
Like WOM, each segment will reflect a different element of interest concerning size acceptance, Respect Fitness Health, science, fashion, current events and much more.
PODWOM’s aim is to present each segment in an entertaining and informative way, made available in downloadable MP3 format.
I hope you enjoy the show and please give us feedback via the website at http://www.podwom.com
Pushing Jack Back Down the Beanstalk: So, I’m Fat; Must I Be Made Constantly Afraid?
by Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw After my adventures with my now ex-doctor, I started thinking of all the fear mongering put on me and on others like me. I am constantly warned of a shortened lifespan with a terribly painful death awaiting me from cardiovascular (or insert another major disease or, if the fear monger is particularly rude, “your lifestyle choices!”) disease. This is even more a certainty because of diabetes, of course. The diabetes alone adds more terror — the potential loss of limbs, sight, and other ghoulish complications. This death is expected at any time because of my morbid obesity and other risk factors. Just an aside here–I am WELL beyond being morbidly obese, thank you! So, I will die eventually in a larger than life manner? So? I live larger than most life around me already. Now what?
Well, I am told that this demise will be extremely painful over a long period of time, but my death will come unexpectedly at anytime. Yes, the fear mongers do use a lot of redundancy and contradiction, I repeat … and I am still trying to figure out how to reconcile that. Excruciating but unexpected demise? Long period of time but suddenly? Hmmm….oh well…onward with my rant… When I am doing all I know to do and all that I am convinced can be safely done, is it still reasonable to beat me up over these risk factors? Have I really deserved what I get because of these factors? Do only people of large size with my risk factors get this treatment? Is this fear mongering normal for the wider population? or even the narrower population? Do skinnier people with the same disease(s), minus the morbid obesity (but note that fat is not a disease!), get the same whipped frenzy of terrorization? Has any of the “mob squad” ever studied genetics, body chemistry, endocrinology, or even basic high school science? Yes, I do include our medical professionals here, alas. Maybe the skinny, maybe the whole population, maybe we all get these scare tactics, but do people like me get it more than the “norm?” What is the acceptable harassment and terrorism of fat people index for today anyway? Do any of these terrorists realize that fear is itself a major risk factor? Hmmm…maybe that is their angle? They DO want rid of my hulking hugeness by any means necessary. I hear it replayed now–”Kill the giants!”
Oh, and it starts young, too. We have to save those fat kids before they grow any bigger and have more risk factors! Why, don’t you know that even KIDS die of cardiovascular disease now-a-days? Uh, perhaps, but so do some major league pitchers, Olympic ice skaters, wild/health food nuts, avid joggers, … Oh, oops, I wasn’t supposed to look there. Foolish footnote freak that I am! Geesh. Sorry about that. Personally, I see scare tactics used to sell almost everything this society wants us all to buy. It is right up there next to the woman’s boobs which are used to sell everything else. But, I can’t help but feel that the supersized and the still-fat-but-less-than-supersized do get more of the terrorization. Terror keeps all too many of us in line…docile…not rebelling and disabling the farts who are pulling all the strings and stealing all the fear hostages’ money.
I do resent being targeted so often for things I either cannot control or for things I am doing the best I know how to do. I know these diseases are nothing to take lightly, but do I have to be beaten into terror in addition? Can’t I enjoy whatever life I have nevertheless? Can I opt out of being afraid or being made afraid?
My next trick is learning how to stop being afraid and just smile. I will button up my overcoat, put on my hat, silently smile for now, and wheel myself right past all my detractors. Want to come along with me? Yes, there will be obstacles in my path and yours, too, no doubt. Does anyone have suggestions for the huge hurdles? Oh, I forgot that I am too large for jumping hurdles. Drats! Ok, so I will have to settle for mowing them down with my wheelchair! Onward ho!
This is fat bigotry, misogyny, and violence against women/vicitms at its most blatant. Words fail me on this one. It is just too horrifically outrageous and imflamatory. Read for yourself. A snippet of the article is here–
Lawyer: ‘Rape’ girl should be ‘glad of attention’
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=49517&in_page_id=34
Thursday, May 17, 2007
A barrister provoked outrage yesterday by claiming that the victim of an alleged gang rape was so fat she would have been ‘glad of the attention’.
Sheilagh Davies, defending one of three boys accused of raping two girls, said the 16-year-old girl had ’slimmed down a lot’ since the alleged attack.
She told Inner London Crown Court: ‘She was 12st 6lb – not quite the swan she may turn into. She may well have been glad of the attention….
continued on site
Speak Your Peace (SYP) Beta
March 22, 2007
One of the regular features of WOM has been “Speak Your Peace (SYP).” SYP has been submissions from the public about a variety of size-related topics, ranging from personal experiences to poetry to prose. We would like to transition SYP into WOM Beta, thus the title SYP Beta.
Here’s the basic submission guidelines
1. All writing will be accepted via e-mail (preferably in MS Word format (.doc), text or rich text). Send your submission to womeasure@gmail.com
2. All text submitted for consideration will be edited and become the property of WITHOUT MEASURE.
3. Text should be between 250 - 750 words in length. Exceptions will be made on a case-by-case basis.
4. The submission email should include your name (or pseudonym) in order to attribute proper credit to the article.
5. Contributors are not paid.
6. No pornography or sexually explicit materials accepted.
7. Please keep a copy of all submitted materials.
That’s it! We’re really looking forward to seeing your submissions.
New PODWOM: Starting A Conversation With The World
March 22, 2007
PODWOM - Podcast Without Measure
http://www.podwom.com
RSS Feed - http://feeds.feedburner.com/Podwom
The theme of this week’s show is “Starting A Conversation With The World.” This show is 24 minutes long (22 MB download) and covers everything from the custody case of the 8-year UK boy to ISAA’s new “Bring Kayla Home” campaign to size acceptance legislation in Massachusetts, WOM Beta and more!
Some may wonder, what is a podcast? Essentially, it is an internet-based broadcast using the MP3 format. Podcasts can also be subscribed to and downloaded to portable MP3 players like iPods.
PODWOM is the abbreviation for Podcast Without Measure, the podcast edition of Without Measure (WOM), the official electronic magazine for the International Size Acceptance Association (ISAA).
Like WOM, each segment will reflect a different element of interest concerning size acceptance, Respect Fitness Health, science, fashion, current events and much more.
PODWOM’s aim is to present each segment in an entertaining and informative way, made available in downloadable MP3 format.
I hope you enjoy the show and please give us feedback via the website at http://www.podwom.com
