Category: fat acceptance
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Things Worth Reading
7 comments on Things Worth ReadingDo you know your upper arm size in centimeters? Well-Rounded Mama has a great post on how the wrong blood-pressure-cuff size can cause misdiagnosis and over- or under-treatment. (Mine is 48.) Margaret Cho’s “diet” where you eat what you want, you don’t have to eat anything you don’t want, and you can buy clothes that fit you now. Body dissatisfaction increases risk of suicide in…
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Myth: Fat Always = Overeating
[This was originally some rambling from the Susie Orbach post that I felt wasn’t entirely on topic. ] Recently I’ve become aware of several tenets of our culture that so many people believe, but few people articulate: Everyone will naturally have a “normal” ratio between their height and weight. (Example: BMI 25-29.9) Anyone who has a greater or lesser ratio than “normal” is doing something (overeating, not eating, not…
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Susie Orbach in the New York Times Magazine
Susie Orbach, author of Fat is a Feminist Issue, was interviewed in the New York Times Sunday Magazine this week. In part: Fifi, which is what I call my book “Fat Is a Feminist Issue,” was in part a plea to give up dieting and learn to recognize hunger and appetite and respond to them. Dieting, I argued, caused compulsive eating and destabilizes our relationship to…
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Big and Healthy
As the media frequently points out, people are bigger now. What is often not pointed out is that we’re also taller and longer lived. The Rotund’s post on the definition of health and yesterday’s discussion on redefining illnesses reminded me of this 2006 New York Times article from Gina Kolata. Scientists used to say that the reason people are living so long these days is that medicine is…
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Not Just “Obese” Was Redefined…
As Fillyjonk reminded me, this chart shows how the diagnosis criteria for diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol were also changed in 1997 and 1998. In the case of high cholesterol, this nearly doubled (86% increase) the number of people who officially have “high cholesterol”. I don’t know the science behind these changes. I’d like to think they made a lot more sense than lowering the overweight…
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Warnings: weight-loss supplements
The FDA has issued more warnings about “weight-loss supplements”. As the NY Times reports, [T]he main law on dietary supplements gives the F.D.A. jurisdiction only after the products go on the market. Rather than reviewing the supplements and approving them for sale, as the agency does with drugs, the F.D.A. is limited to spot-checking manufacturers and distributors, and testing products already on store shelves. Even the F.D.A.…
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“You need to eat a sammich”
This weekend those words were directed at SJ Tucker, the singer who recently had surgery. More specifically, I heard an older woman tell her: It’s good to see you looking so well. But dear, you need to eat a sandwich! I know this expression can be a joke. It can also be, perhaps, an expression of concern. But most often, it’s an expression of judgment. Your body…
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The most significant “lifestyle” cause of death and disease
We focus so much on weight, especially women. Magazines, TV shows, news, advertising, government programs. We focus on diet and exercise to “improve” our weight, but really we’re trying to improve ourselves. Yet we don’t focus on getting richer or better educated.
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I thought this was FAB
From Lesley at Fatshionista, about the “before” Polaroid taken by Jenny Craig in 1991. I looked apparently happy in that photograph, but I was wrong. I looked apparently happy, but upon further reflection, my breasts are slightly uneven, my skin is too dark, my knees are ugly, my hair is windblown. I looked apparently happy but I was wrong to feel that way, because look at…
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No words
This is just incredibly depressing. I am so sorry this can happen in what is supposed to be the civilized world. Take care of each other, okay?
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How many non sequiturs are IN this one anyway?
This comment came in reply to my review of my review of Health At Every Size: I personally belive that living a comfortable life is a way to longevity, so if you believe that you are over-weight, have the determination to loose the extra fat you dont want, you can do it and never loose focus. Er … I’m confused. I don’t “belive” my life, I…
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Acne, Height and Headaches Contagious Too!
Remember the “study” showing that having a fat friend made you more likely to be fat? Some researchers decided to apply the same methodology to pimples, height, and headaches. I missed this over the holidays but Sandy at JunkFoodScience didn’t. She summarized their results (published in the British Medical Journal) as follows: They found increased relative risks of 58% for height, 62% for pimples, and…
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BMI calculator for your home page?
If you’ve played with the iGoogle home page, you’ve seen all the different gadgets you can install. I have news, weather, a clock, my inbox, and so forth…. But this one made me laugh. A BMI Calculator for your home page? I can see someone creating one, if only for practice in creating a gadget – it takes a couple inputs, it gives an output,…
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Correlations vs Causation
You may have read that getting less sleep is associated with heart disease. This one included a well-written description of how correlations are not causation. Senior author Diane S. Lauderdale cautioned that the new report does not prove a cause-and-effect relationship between a lack of sleep and heart disease. “It’s important to say that this is the first report and this does not yet prove the association…
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Let’s count the assumptions!
Start with a holiday news article on “the obese”. Let’s see: “The obese” all think & act alike. The obese all want to lose weight and are on “eating plans”. Not sure if intuitive eating is for thin folks or for nobody at all. The obese are all feeling self-conscious and judged about what they eat. Everyone knows who’s obese and who’s not. Eating something…
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Cultivating a Positive Attitude
No one has to be coached to think more negative thoughts. They just come naturally. But positive thoughts require focus, effort, and discipline. The task itself is simple enough. Just take out a piece of paper and write down every single thing you like about your job. Or keep a daily list of five things that were positive at work today. Making that list can be attitude…
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Is fat hysteria damaging?
Well, now, let’s think about this. Besides the negative affects of weight bias, besides the negative effects of the resulting stress, besides the fact that trying to lose weight often results in gaining more, there’s this little gem: [I]n one 1960s test, when hospital patients were given sugar water and told it would make them vomit, 80% of them did. – WSJ This is called a “Nocebo…
Living ~400lbs 