Category: fat acceptance
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What would you put into a Fitness for Life class?
25 comments on What would you put into a Fitness for Life class?Everyone’s talking about Lincoln college requiring students with a BMI of 30 or larger to take a “Fitness for Life” class. What I’m wondering is, what would you like to see in such a class? Not what is usually in such classes, or what Lincoln is including — what would rock your socks to see? Here’s some ideas: Topics: Fitness isn’t necessarily thinness Why fitness is useful…
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Oprah Mag printed the words “fat acceptance”
Yeah, I’m kind of in shock too. It’s in the December 2009 issue. The Fat Fight in the “Connections” section, by Robin Marantz Henig and Jess Zimmerman. Actually it’s a pair of articles: the first is by the mother, Henig; the second is by the daughter, Zimmerman. Henig discusses how she tried to be “supportive” of her daughter so she wouldn’t grow up fat, but notes…
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Losing Weight Doesn’t Prevent Cancer?
From an article on myths and facts in cancer prevention in The New York Times comes this interesting sidebar. Specifically, among things that have not been shown to prevent cancer are: Exercise Fruits and vegetables Losing weight Low-fat diet So why are these so often recommended? “I think it’s wishful thinking,” said Dr. Susan Love, a breast surgeon and president of the Dr. Susan Love Research…
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A thought for the new week
Recently, I read a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in which 300 “moderately obese people” were followed on three different diets: the low-carb diet, the low-fat diet, and the Mediterranean diet (healthy fats, some dairy products, abundant fruits and vegetables). After the first five months of tightly controlled dieting, the dieters lost an average of 10 to 14 pounds. However, by the end…
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ADA: Not all fat people get diabetes
From the American Diabetes Association: In a recent survey conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of the American Diabetes Association, 2,081 Americans were asked questions to test their diabetes knowledge. The results showed that several diabetes myths and misconceptions are common and diabetes remains a misunderstood disease. […] Myth: If you are overweight or obese, you will eventually develop type 2 diabetes. According the survey, approximately three…
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Virtual Window Shopping: Nifty Prices
[Looking at supersize / extended size clothing which is to say, clothing I can wear. Preferably modeled by fat people.] Mostly with the virtual window shopping I’ve been looking at women’s clothes that I could wear* and that I think are really really nifty. This week it’s stuff I could wear, like enough to wear, and have nifty prices — under $25. One Stop Plus: Print knit…
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Health At Every Size “whether you’re 100lbs or 500lbs”
The LA Times ran a couple articles on Health At Every Size this weekend. Diets? Not for these folks Do extra pounds always equal extra risk? One bit that from the second article gave me a smile: “You can’t know just based on a person’s size whether that person has good or poor health habits,” says Linda Bacon, a professor of nutrition at City College of San…
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Football Players and Fat
It’s September and the American football season has started. Considering how fat people are reviled in America, it’s fascinating how the biggest football players still receive the cachet of being professional athletes. I started thinking of this when I realized that the treadmills at Fitness World* allow me to enter my actual weight. Then the mini-gym at work replaced its treadmills and they don’t top out at 330 or…
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Believe in Your Limitations, and They’re Yours
Last week I posted some statistics about height and weight. Partly it’s because the statistics surprised me a bit — I thought women were taller and heavier, on average, than they are. I also thought it would be an interesting bit of data to discuss and think about. There’s something else, though. I accepted the data when I read it. I could’ve denied it. I could have…
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Perspective: Use It Or Lose It
I recently discovered that the CDC has Anthropometric Reference Data (PDF), otherwise known as various body measurements (height, weight, waist, etc) broken down by age, gender, and percentiles. Personally I find this data fascinating. The height tables, for example, were a wake-up call. At 68″ tall I know, intellectually, that I’m on the tall side for a woman. But unlike, say, jr high, I feel that I’m…
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Death, not Evacuation
This is painful. I am grateful that my ARNP found my vitamin deficiencies and that I can treat them, for the surgeries and drugs that have given family members longer lives. But right now I feel I could never leave anyone I loved alone in a hospital.
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Newsweek: Fat and Healthy
Lesley at Fatshionista linked to a good Newsweek article on fat hatred. While reading it I noticed a related web exclusive by Daniel Heimpel* called Fat and Healthy: Why It’s Possible. Heimpel discusses some of the research on being fat and healthy (or not), citing Katherine Flegal’s study which found that being overweight decreased the risk of death compared to normal-weight folks, and even moderately obese…
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Thankful Thursday
[Another weekly exercise in gratitude.] 1) Good music & dancing this weekend. 2) My lace-trimmed v-neck top. 3) Beautiful weather. 4) Being able to walk further and faster than I did a few weeks ago. 5) Getting adjusted to new schedule (shifting my days earlier a few hours) so that I’m not OMG SLEEPY all the time. :) 6) I’m eating out less and enjoying it.
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Alzheimers, Brain Size, and Fat
Have you seen the story that older fat people have smaller brains than thinner ones, which has been previously linked with Alzheimer’s disease? Yeah. There may be a correlation there, yes. Future studies may bear this out. Has a link been noticed between weight and Alzheimer’s anywhere else? The Alzheimer’s Association does list weight as a risk factor. Sort of. It starts with the fact that age…
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Links: Healthy Enough, Attractiveness, Photoshop
This quote comes from a personal finance blog, but it ties into the “enough” conversation a bit: If one defines the word rich in non-monetary terms, the seemingly herculean feat of “getting rich” may be one of the easiest (and most valuable) accomplishments of one’s life. What if “rich” is simply defined as “being content?” […] It is quite true that without sufficient financial health to provide…
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Things To Read
First: Unapologetically Fat spotted “Obesity Police’s Shaky Science” in The Baltimore Sun, which starts with: Why is a thin, male smoker considered a physical role model as president but a full-figured African-American woman is considered an embarrassment as his nominee for surgeon general? …and moves on to discuss the recent obesity research that finds that overweight people live longer than those in the “normal weight” category. It…
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NYTimes on Fat Acceptance (Again)
“Throwing out the diet and embracing the fat” is not a perfect description of fat acceptance, but very, very good to see in mainstream media. Many fat blogs are named and linked to; four or five books are mentioned; and the obligatory “but people are healthier if they’re thinner” doesn’t get the last word — it’s immediately followed by: What remains undisputed is that no clinical trial…
Living ~400lbs 