What Will It Take?

We have begun to get glimpses at the U.S. Government-proposed “public option” in health care, and it is worse than I feared. And now ISAA is getting media requests to discuss the proposed “obesity taxes” associated with the same healthcare measures. The possibilities of the potential future are frightening.

Of course, we should be used to being made afraid. The medical and bariatric surgery industries try to make us afraid of fat, the U.S. Government tries to make us afraid of fat and just about any public figure who wants to stir up fear uses the Universal Term of Horror (UToH): Obesity. And it works.

Well now it’s our turn, except we’re not saying to be afraid of obesity. We’re saying fear those who would legislate obesity!

Health and Human Services Secretary Katherine Sebelius says “We are killing ourselves, and more importantly, we are killing our children” at a 3-day conference in Washington D.C. called “Weight of the Nation.”  Wow, guys, how subtle.  At the same time, a “new study” came out claiming “obese Americans — those who are 30 or more pounds over a healthy weight — cost the country an estimated $147 billion in weight-related medical bills in 2008.” (Source: USA Today)

Was that study made by the same people who said 200,000 people die of obesity each year and it really turned out to be closer to 28,000 or less? Regardless, people in the medical industry and more importantly, people in the legislative and executive branches take these studies-passed-off-as-facts very seriously! And these are the people who will determine whether or not the healthcare initiative gets passed and if so, what will become law.

Now, in all fairness, Sibelius and others did make recommendations for encouraging healthy food choices and more physical activities on the local level. There’s nothing wrong with that, so long as that doesn’t translate into forcing people to eat specific things in specific quantities based on their Body Mass Index (BMI) or weight on a scale. Because we have another name for that: a DIET! And even the weight loss industry finally conceded that diets don’t work (just ask Weight Watchers, it’s their mantra now).

It doesn’t matter what those of us in the Size Acceptance Movement have been saying for years — that you can be fat and fit, that it takes a healthy self-esteem to make for a better person, that weight-based discrimination leads to eating disordered and other self-destructive behaviors (including suicide),  that the medical industry has a built-in bias against fat people that begins in medical school, that weight loss surgery kills thousands and maims thousands more each year. None of that matters! The law of the land is not ours to dictate…that is in the hands of elected officials in Washington D.C. who have their own opinions, their own biases and unfortunately, their own agendas.

A few weeks ago, I literally sounded the alarm! There is a threat to every fat person in America.  The threat is not healthcare you don’t have to pay for (except you do, through your taxes), it’s the control the U.S. Government would have to deny you healthcare at all! Some people have scoffed at that and told me “Allen, it’s like that now! I can’t get approved for this or for that already!” And sadly, for some people, that is absolutely true.

But you ain’t seen nothin’ yet! This bill opens the door for the Government to have unlimited control of healthcare, which can literally mean they control your quality of life! And by tying it to insurance and ultimately, wrestling management from the private sector, all kinds of scenarios become possible:

1. Want a job? Get weight loss surgery. Hey, the government will pay for it!

2. Need lifesaving cancer treatment? Your BMI is too high, raising your risk factor. Coverage denied.

3. Need some credit to buy a house, buy a bed, medical equipment, a car? Will that be gastric bypass or lapband?

Shall I go on? There is a genuine threat building. And the only answer is to unite and fight for the term “size (weight and height)” to be added to Federal anti-discrimination laws before the drastic healthcare initiatives become the law of the land.

Do we need to have “hospices for fat people” and mandatory weight loss surgery before people will have had enough? The proposed legislation has proven to me that the people who drafted the legislation do not have human life as the priority, only the bottom line.

Seriously…what will it take?

The True Meaning Of Healthy Living

This is something I have written after I saw Oprah on TV selling her style of HAES to the world:

I am glad to see that 2009 is the year of healthy living, the year to rediscover our bodies and our self worth, and learn to be active and lead a healthy life style.

This is all good, if it were not for the never ending message to lose weight and measure our achievement by the number of pounds lost or the our new thinner selves.

Glamorizing thinness is harmful, it has not only failed for decades, but obesity is on the rise due to the change in metabolism and eating disorders  these methods cause.

This is the reason why the promoters of weight loss are borrowing our messages of size acceptance and health at every size, to sell their diets and keep  women and teens especially, in the vicious circle of yo yo dieting and body loathing.

My idea of caring and loving my body is unconditional, it has no strings attached. I will love and care for my health no matter what weight i am at or if i lose pounds or inches as a result of a healthy life style or not.

I eat healthy and move my body for health and only for health, not to lose pounds or look thinner.

My self worth is not measured by the number on the scale or a dress size, I am who I am at any size.

I am worthy of respect love and dignity now as I am, it should not be less worthy when fat and more worthy when thin.

My self worth is not based on the scale or the tape measure, these statistics are part of me but not the whole of me, and when they fluctuate they do not affect who i am as a human being.

Caring for my health is a pleasurable duty I have towards my best friend, my child and the home of my soul my beautiful body.

Without it, I would not be able to love , feel pleasure, walk, run, laugh and dance, be happy or sad , work and play, be creative , be productive, be a lover and a friend, be a mother, a father or a child, without this body I do not exist.

For many years you made me hate it, loath it, despise it, torture it, stuff it, gorge it, punish it, insult it, starve it, and beat it.

You are fat an ugly you said, you should be ashamed of your body, who would want you when you are looking like this, you are disgusting, you are obese, lardy, horrible and flabby.

You have let yourself go you said, do something about it you lazy cow.

It is easy to lose weight and look great,  just stop eating, stop stuffing your face with sweets and junk food and get off your fat behind and move….

You only have yourself to blame, you have no will power, you are  disgusting.

No wonder obesity is on the rise, the reverse psychology meant to so called  motivate us fatties to lose weight, resulted in blood tears and death.

The get healthy message you have stolen from us, will not work for you, given your history of torture and abuse.

- Fatima Parker

Your Friends Make You Fat…Not!

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.”

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!

New Year, New Diet Mania

We all know the scenario: the end-of-year holidays have come and gone and now the diet marketing goes into effect. People are guilt-tripped because they supposedly ate too much during the holidays, make New Years’ resolutions to lose weight this year and will try just about anything to accomplish this goal. Ah, but this year, we also have weight loss surgery being pushed by bariatric corporations, whether gastric banding or the full shebang, gastric bypass.

I’m pretty passionate in my disapproval of weight loss surgery (See ISAA’s Position on Weight Loss Surgery). I’ve had friends die from it, I’ve seen numerous lives ruined by it and I learn more not to like about it almost daily.

My outlook is not all gloom and doom, however. Actually, I have seen a lot of positive changes in recent years. Modern teens and young adults do not make weight loss as high a priority as their parents. Some do not make it a priority at all. In the United States, at least, this is the first generation of people to be raised with some awareness of size acceptance and the scientific proof that diets do not work. I believe this will eventually happen in other countries where word about size acceptance and healthy body esteem is beginning to spread, slowly but surely.

As we continue to work to get information about size acceptance, Respect Fitness Health and the pitfalls of the junk science being used to promote weight loss is dispensed in person and over the internet, the more information people will have to make informed choices concerning their health.

Even new studies are clearly showing that weight loss is not necessary to be healthy while making improved food choices and being active is. I believe we will see more research in this area and more conclusive proof but of course, time will tell.

Best Wishes,

Allen