"bl_list" via Abigail in Google Reader

My Date with a Nutritionist

2012-02-10T15:35:27Z

First: Hi! I’m not dead. And I’ve missed you.

Second: Here’s why I haven’t been writing: I’m taking five upper-level classes at UNR, doing revisions on my book for my new agent (!), tutoring 10 hours a week and teaching a creative writing class for teenagers at the community college. Yikes.

Okay, that all said, I wanted to share something with you.

When we joined our new gym in January, we were given a free 45 minute session with a nutritionist. I went and did that yesterday.

I had no problem connecting with the nutritionist. She was very nice, knowledgeable without being overbearing and non-pushy with the diets.

She did weigh me before we went into her office (we had to walk through the gym, and a scale, to get there.) And when we got into her office, she clearly expected me to have a weight loss goal of some kind. She seemed very confused when I didn’t. At first I was like oh, here we go, but then I remembered that people do what they know. This woman is used to women who weigh over 300 pounds coming to her because they want to lose weight.

Once we got talking, she said the goal definitely needed to be to keep my blood sugar regulated. She called it reactive. Her advice was basically to eat six times a day, every three hours. Always eat a protein when I eat a carbohydrate. She recommended 2200 calories a day. I don’t count calories, but I found this interesting enough to share because I honestly expected her to advise me at closer to 1500 or 1600. At least 2200 felt sane.

I’ve never been to a nutritionist before. It was interesting, but I’d already gathered most of the information on my own. I think I did like hearing it directly from an expert, though. I’m glad the session was free. My biggest thing these days is figuring out how to have enough energy to get through my entire day. I need to keep going from when I wake up until I go to bed at night. I can’t crash at two or three in the afternoon. (Well, clearly I can. But I really don’t want to. I screws everything up.)

Next week, I’m meeting with a ‘fitness expert’ for an hour long discussion that also came free with my gym membership. The nutritionist said that she believes it is definitely my blood sugar that caused me to feel so poorly after exercise, including severe muscle pain and gave me some advice about keeping that from happening again (basically, eat before and after I work out. Eat during if I exercise for more than an hour.) I’ve been swimming a couple of times a week and it’s so nice. Once my revisions are done, I’ll have more free time to exercise more and I’m really looking forward to that.

So what about you all? Have you ever been to a nutritionist? What was your experience?

I'm currently working on a FAQ for my blog

2012-02-10T18:05:30Z

And since I of course do not tag anything ever, I seem to have little to no access to my previously answered questions. I would appreciate y’all sending me asks with questions you’d like to see answered and/or questions you think I may have answered before but should be in a FAQ.

So far I’ve got stuff about fat acceptance resources, doing fat studies in school, and why I ID as queer.

HELP PLEASE AND THANK YOU

here is a gif

dandyasfuck: randomlancila: mmmajestic: 2 Large White...

2012-02-10T17:03:04Z

dandyasfuck:

randomlancila:

mmmajestic:

2 Large White Wives

Photos by ZOMA Fotografia

These are legit some of the most beautiful wedding pictures I’ve ever seen. Congratulations babies!

:3

Total babes. I miss Jessica so much. I’LL BE THERE SOONNNN

The Trouble with “Just”

2012-02-10T07:03:01Z

I took a water aerobics class today just for fun. The class was full of women of lots of ages of lots of sizes. The class was lead by a tall, stocky woman who told us that she is 56. Almost everyone was smiling, people were joking around, it was awesome. Then we transitioned to the hot tub.

So began more diet talk than I’ve had to be around in a long time. Everyone was talking about their weight loss effort. The woman leading the class talked about how she had three knee surgeries. She complained that she had been eating nothing but salads but couldn’t lose weight. When someone else expressed concern about her diet she said “My doctor told me that my knee pain would go away if I just lose 20 pounds. I told him how much I exercise and he said that I just need to keep eating less than I am until the weight comes off.” I asked her what her knee pain was from. She was in a car accident and had three surgeries. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that a car accident and three surgeries are causing her knee pain, not – throws dart – 20 pounds.

This story is, sadly, typical. What I want to focus on is the use of the word “just”. It’s a word that gets slung around by everyone from doctors who fail at practicing evidence-based medicine to the internet health geniuses who try to tell everyone how to live:

Just eat less and exercise more
Just send your kids out to play and they’ll be thin
Just lose [random number of pounds] and your [whatever health problem] will be solved

The problem is that “just” connotes something that is both simple and guaranteed. “Just say no” was meant to imply that if you simply say no to drugs you won’t ever take any. Simple, guaranteed. But when it comes to the human body there is no such thing as simple and guaranteed. There is so much that we don’t know and so much conflicting research. When people say “you just have to eat less and exercise more” it’s because they erroneously believe that weight loss is simple. The fact that almost nobody maintains long-term weight loss calls this into question. Often it’s said by people who want to feel superior, or who haven’t done their research, or who haven’t thought things all the way through. For example the idea that we can “just send our kids outside to play and they’ll be thin” ignores the fact that many children can’t do that safely and the fact that there is no guarantee that the activity will lead to weight loss.

Whenever anyone says “Just” and then tells you how they think that you should live, I suggest you consider the source.

Finish This Friday!

We only need 52 donors to hit the 1,000 that we need to unlock our $5,000 More of Me To Love matching grant. Let’s hit it today! At that point we’ll close donations and begin implementation. If you haven’t donated there is your last chance to stand up for bullied kids and be part of this. If you have donated then consider asking a friend to donate. You can link to http://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/enough-is-enough-the-big-fat-money-bomb/ to give them all the details and the donation links, or send them directly to the solidarity dollar site at http://tinyurl.com/solidaritydollar. Welcome to Finish This Friday!

This blog is supported by its readers rather than corporate ads. If you feel that you get value out of the blog, can afford it, and want to support my work and activism, please consider a paid subscription or a one-time contribution. The regular e-mail subscription (available at the top right hand side of this page) is still completely free. Thanks for reading! ~Ragen

Eloquii: Here’s Hoping!

2012-02-09T21:24:30Z

Oh man please don’t let Eloquii suck.

So remember back in the day when The Limited owned Lane Bryant and for a couple years in the early noughties (yeah I hate calling them that too) when you could walk into Lane Bryant and come out with clothes that lasted more than one season, might’ve had some naturally occurring fibers and weren’t covered with random flaccid ruffles/metallic screenprints/shoddily adhered sequins and sometimes things even had sleeves? Plus you didn’t have to mortgage your house to buy a pair of underwear?

Man, those were heady days my friends.

I’m not saying Lane Bryant doesn’t still occasionally knock it out of the plus-size park, but I have some dear friends –who shall remain nameless since they are under the employ of Charming Shoppes– who straight-out admitted the quality of the average Lane Bryant product has dropped to what one friend calls “Just above Old Navy” while the average price per unit creeps ever higher. Sigh. ‘Twas always thus.

SO this is why I’m super excited about Eloquii, the new and confusingly vowel-heavy plus size line from The Limited.

I haven’t ordered anything from them yet but I am very encouraged to see a thoughtful mix of trend pieces and classics designed for actual adults to wear to their actual jobs and in their actual lives and although you can’t tell right now, I’m typing with all my fingers and toes crossed with the girlish and perhaps naive hope that Eloquii will fill the gap in plus size ready-to-wear between slouching-towards-bargain-bin Lane Bryant and lines like Lafayette 148 New York, which are fantastic but err on the side of prohibitively expensive for most wallets.

From what I’ve seen on the site, I’m pretty excited. True, there isn’t much that rocks my personal casbah at the very moment, and I’m a teensy bit concerned about the skirts being a little short because Lord knows how many plus size designers forget how big girls go OUT –especially in back– before we go down resulting in supposedly knee-length skirts that become festivals of oversharing when worn by a girl with more than the average quantity of junk in her trunk.

Still, I’ve selected a handful of items that might be wending their way to Villa Plumcake sooner rather than later.

I LOVE this striped dress. I would love it more if it hit at the middle or the bottom of the knee because honestly, it would be SO much more chic but still, I LOVE this dress. And would you look at that? SLEEVES.

The great thing about this dress is it will always look fashionable, no matter how old you are. it would be cute on a 16 year old and elegant on a woman of a certain age (although again, would be so much better if it wasn’t above the knee). It’s my favorite item on the site right now and if any of you have experience with it, I’d be very interested in hearing your take.

How about this trench coat? It’s tricky to make a decent trench for a big girl because the traditional cut adds a lot of bulk precisely where you don’t want it and the double breasted look is tough, especially for the chestally blessed. It looks like they took their time with the seaming of this one and although I’ve been burned many times before, this trench –especially in that color– might just be the one that’ll save me from swing coat perdition.

Who asked for a sheath? Someone asked for a sheath. Well, here you go.

It’s a poly/viscose/spandex blend, so while it’s not the preferred lightweight wool suiting, it’s not a ponte knit either. Oh, a word about sheath dresses: you pretty much HAVE to get them tailored, and I say that as a person who (admittedly illogically) resents the hell out of having the alter things having anything altered. Think about it. A sheath is made to fit a sword exactly. That’s how a sheath dress should fit you.

From one basic to another, let’s have a look at these JAG denim trousers which might be of particular interest to the long-legged among us because depending on which copy you read, the inseam is either 32 or 33″. I am having very special feelings about these trousers because they look ear-perkingly similar to my Magical Jeans of Splendor, which I’ve worn into the ground and cannot replace. They’re 66% cotton and 32% something called “Elasterelle”.

I know what you’re thinking: Why would they make jeans out of a 1960′s girl group, and what happened to the other 2 percent? I don’t know, my friends, but I’m interested to know.

The high percentage of Elasterelle, which sounds stretchy, and also like a role Jennifer Hudson would’ve played when she was still fat, makes me a little concerned about the heartbreak of elephant butt, so again, anyone who has experience with these jeans, help a sister out.

Finally, and I would definitely categorize this under Advance Fashion, I am having some affection for this sort of psuedo-Fortuny pleat skirt.

Fortuny pleats are crazy hard to wear when you’re a big girl, but I bet if you’re tall enough with enough presence (you know if you do) you could totally pull this off with an ultra-structured (think German or Belgian designers) all black outfit and look AMAZING.

I’m proud of Eloquii for offering this because it’s a pretty ambitious piece, especially considering the damage the broomstick skirt hath wrought upon our people (Question: Who looks good in a broomstick skirt? Answer: No one, not now, not ever.) and I hope it’s a sign of adventurous things to come.

So that’s what’s churning my butter from Eloquii at the moment. Like I said, if you’ve had experience with them, put it in the comments and let’s all cross our fingers that they’re here to stay.

Self-Support.

2012-02-09T19:48:00Z

I'm going to write this just to back up my own feelings, because I need a positive mantra. But I hope it's helpful to some others too.

I'm feeling really down about weight gaining and my mind is full of "OMG 200 lbs", "OMG 40 inches", "OMG huge" etc. messages. In my brain, I know why I'm not fighting my fat, but I need for my emotions to come on that level too.

I do not diet because

...that mindset is detrimental to my eating disorder recovery.

...for once in my life, I really want to be taken and accepted as I am, and anyone who doesn't can go screw.

..it usually fails, and I could be setting myself up for a huge disappointment.

...I believe fat acceptance is true, and it makes way more sense than the anti-fat mentality.

...I've come such a long way in self-acceptance, and I'd be tearing up everything I've built.

...I'd be letting people down. I'm not a big name blogger, but I know some people get strength from my struggle. There's not that many of us, we need each other.

...heck, because I LIKE TO EAT and I'm only just learning to do it without fear. There's nothing wrong with that!

This isn't helping me right now but hopefully, if I tell myself these things many enough times, I will realize it's really all true, and this is the way I should follow. I just wish I had some peace of mind. Does a lack of peace of mind mean there's something wrong with my values? Or is it just a sign that I'm not there yet?

Or maybe it's just human life, everything is always hard and takes many years of hard work and dedication, and you get there step by step. No matter which way you choose, that's how you find peace.

No one wins in the Pain Olympics.

2012-02-09T12:20:35Z

{image credit :: spcbrass}

Most of us have had them – those moments when we’re absolutely, positively convinced that this wrenching pain inside our souls has just got to be the biggest the world has ever seen. We think that if the if the rest of the world had to suffer this much, well… we’re pretty certain that civilization couldn’t possibly have developed as it did. We ache and we hurt and we may even feel angry that no one can know this pain inside our hearts.

And then we get back the Mr. Potato Head and feel better, right? Kidding!

In some ways, this sense that our pain is distinctive does mirror a childlike sense of uniqueness. As very young children, we see our environment as an extension of ourselves. Essentially, the world revolves around us (and it sort of does – have you seen how many toddlers own iPads?) and it takes a while to develop an awareness of other people and the fact that they experience emotions. (You mean kicking daddy in the shin hurts him?)

Now, I’m not saying we’re all a bunch of overgrown toddlers with no awareness of one another. In fact, many of us have too much awareness of one another! But our experience of our own pain can sometimes reflect that sense that no one can possibly know how this feels. And as a grown-up in the world, that’s a pretty lonely place to be.

When we perceive that our pain is somehow greater than the next guys – our day at work was harder, our mother’s cancer is in a farther stage of progression, our break-up was on Facebook and not just through text – we suddenly are gearing up for the Pain Olympics. It’s an elite event in which only the most victimized survive.

Sports featured in this daily occasion are Career, Health, Finances, Relationships, Family, and everyone’s favorite, The Universe Just Totally Screwed Me. Players battle it over out such important issues as whose trip to the dentist was more painful and who has to spend more time with creepy Uncle Sal at Thanksgiving.

The problem with the Pain Olympics is that no one ever seems to win. The battles rage on as we become more and more defeated trying to defend just how hard we have it. Our strength, the limited amount we have considering the crap we’re dealing with, slowly diminishes. And eventually, everyone seems to forfeit.

Thinking our pain is worse than others isn’t inherently bad. Heck, for all we know, it is worse! But what happens when we attach so firmly to that belief is that we find ourselves alone on an island of our pain. We’ve alienated anyone that might be able to relate – to whatever degree that might be possible – and we’ve adopted the victim role. And the victim never wins.

So how do you win the Pain Olympics? You throw down your sword and armor and you get out of the fight. That doesn’t mean defeat and it doesn’t even mean letting go of the belief that you have it worse off. It simply means dropping the battle and allowing others to help ease your pain rather than challenging it. It takes courage. And it definitely deserves a medal.

Do you ever feel like you have to defend your pain?

Sick of Being Somebody’s Cash Cow?

2012-02-09T09:32:06Z

People have moo’d at me and called me a cow, and that’s annoying, but not as annoying as the number of people, businesses, and industries who call my fat friends I cash cows. That cash may not be coming to us since statistically we get paid less than our thin peers and are less likely to be hired. Ironically that’s part of a mass hysteria and prejudice that is perpetuated by a group of people and industries who make Billions of dollars off our backs. Now, people who I respect believe that the people behind the diet industry and Big Pharma have the best of intentions and truly believe that what they are doing is best for people’s health. I have a hard time believing that. Here are some reasons why:

Despite the fact that the American Diabetes Association tells us that most overweight people will never get diabetes, the concepts of obesity and diabetes have been so conflated that the term “diabesity” has come into vogue. Except it’s not by crazy random happenstance – the term “diabesity” was trademarked by a group called Shape Up America. According to their website, they are supposed to be “high profile national initiative to promote healthy weight and increased physical activity in America”. So why do you think for-profit diet companies like Weight Watchers International, Jenny Craig and Slim*Fast, not to mention pharmaceutical companies including Wyeth Ayerst, Ortho-McNeil, and Novartis, have donated millions of dollars to this initiative? An initiative which, if they thought it would actually work, would put them out of business? Do you think it’s possible that they know that the fat panic created by Shape Up will drive them customers who will have a 95% chance of failing and then becoming their customers again?

Speaking of diet companies, it wasn’t their idea to put disclaimers up every time they say that their product works. Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig and other weight loss companies have been successfully sued for deceptive trade practices by the Federal Trade Commission, and their disingenuous practices have lead the FTC to create regulations specifically for their advertising. So they didn’t change their very profitable behavior of selling a product that they know has limited success, they just disclaimed it.

Weight Watchers in particular has been caught doing some really shady research. Counting people as successes twice when they lost weight, gained it back, then lost it again, making it seem like people who succeed on their first diet to lose the 10 pounds they gained after a break-up prove that people on their 20th diet can lose over 100 pounds, counting people as “successes” for statistical purposes as soon as they lose 5% of their body weight, even if that leaves those people in the same BMI category in which they started (and therefore, based on their own literature, at the same health risks as when they started.)

The Strong4Life campaign put up billboards, bus shelter signs and commercials showing healthy confident fat kids acting like unhealthy unhappy fat kids who don’t have clothes that fit them, with slogans like “Being fat takes the fun out of being a kid”. They claimed that it was necessary to shame, stigmatize and humiliate fat kids in order to make them healthier. The program is the brainchild of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. They are a not-for-profit organization and in addition to taking donations from Waffle House, IHOP, and Dairy Queen while denouncing the food that they serve, they also took over $145,000 in donations from Coca-Cola and Pepsi. I notice that on the Strong4Life campaign’s Quick Start tips page, they caution against drinking juice, but say nothing about soda. Is it because the juice companies could not come up with $145,000? They are also running a weight loss clinic for kids including performing partial stomach amputations for weight loss in children despite the fact that the practice is considered highly questionable.

If these are their best intentions I’d hate to see their worst. Here are some of the many companies, industries, and people that benefit financially from the conflation of weight and health, the stereotype of thinness as beauty that lead to stigma and shame being heaped on fat people in our society, and from making sure that we focus on weight and not health:

The diet industry – Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, MediFast,Slim*Fast, Jess Weiner etc.
Pharmaceutical Companies that manufacture weight loss drugs
The Biggest Loser Franchise (advertising for the show, DVDs, supplements, soundtracks, t-shirts, and more)
Women’s magazines who depend on a staggering number of weight loss articles to sell issues
Weight loss surgery centers, weight loss surgeons
Companies, like Allergan, that sell weight loss surgery implements
Doctors who specialize in weight loss
Researchers who specialize in researching weight loss (to the exclusion of other health practices)
Publishing companies who publish books about weight loss
Authors of weight loss books
And more…

One of my favorite things about the Support All Kids billboard campaign is that it gets money flowing in the other direction. It makes me happy to buy books about Health at Every Size and take workshops about Health at Every Size because it sends my money in the other direction. It makes me happy when I or one of my colleagues is paid as a speaker by universities and by those who attend our workshops. I am happy whenever I see that someone has created a product to help people live a HAES life because it allows people to get good information, and send their money in the other direction. I can’t stop everyone from calling me a cow, but by voting with my wallet I can stop being a cash cow for industries that perpetuate hysteria about, and shame and stigmatization of, my friends and me all the while claiming that it’s “for our own good”.

iVillage Update

I did a piece for iVillage about Stacy Irvine, the girl whose collapse from anemia and breathing problems led to the discovery that her diet consisted almost entirely of chicken nuggets. Every article mentioned that she was at a healthy weight, although you would think that the situation would help them see that there is no such thing as a healthy weight. Anyway, you can find the article here, it is unapologetically HAES without the usual “of course, obesity is still bad blah blah blah” paragraph and so publishing it was a kind of a bold move for iVillage - so if you feel like reading and commenting then go for it!

Georgia Billboard Update

Speaking of that Georgia Billboard Campaign, we are only 98 donors away from hitting the 1,000 that we need to unlock our $5,000 More of Me To Love matching grant. At that point we’ll close donations and begin implementation. If you haven’t donated there is still time to stand up for bullied kids and be part of this. If you have donated then consider asking a friend to donate. You can link to http://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/enough-is-enough-the-big-fat-money-bomb/ to give them all the details and the donation links, or send them directly to the solidarity dollar site at http://tinyurl.com/solidaritydollar. It would be awesome to get this done today!

kylathegreat: Someone said something mean about my vagina....

2012-02-09T05:14:25Z

kylathegreat:

Someone said something mean about my vagina. :””C

Oh there’s me + my house

"Fat people who love themselves scare the shit out of people who don’t love themselves. Even fat..."

2012-02-09T05:09:11Z

““Fat people who love themselves scare the shit out of people who don’t love themselves. Even fat people who are TRYING to love themselves scare the shit out of people who can’t do the same. We force people to have to look at why they hate their bodies because we are “supposed” to hate ours and we don’t. And sometimes they have no idea what to do with that, so they act like assholes.””

- Tigress Osborn (via buttahlove)

YUP

Who could be against “Healthy Children of All Sizes?” Part I

2012-02-09T03:22:45Z

Me. Alright, I’m exaggerating somewhat. I’m not at all against healthy children of all sizes. But I’m *totally* against Healthy …

"A woman’s individual preoccupation with weight often serves as a mask for other, more intricate..."

2012-02-09T02:30:31Z

“A woman’s individual preoccupation with weight often serves as a mask for other, more intricate sources of discomfort, the state of one’s waistline being easier to contemplate than the state of one’s soul … how much self-acceptance she does or does not possess, how much pleasure she feels permitted to have, how much anxiety or guilt or shame her hungers arouse - these are the kinds of issues a woman may bring to the scale.”

- Appetites by Caroline Knapp (via skirtingtheline)
This feels really relevant right now.

heyfatchick: I LOVE YOU RACHEL ADAMS

2012-02-08T23:33:25Z

heyfatchick:

I LOVE YOU RACHEL ADAMS

courtneytrouble: Inside the San Francisco Bay Guardian Courtney...

2012-02-08T23:11:59Z

courtneytrouble:

Inside the San Francisco Bay Guardian

Courtney Trouble / Dylan Ryan / BIlly Castro

Photo by Molly DeCoudreaux

chead: just started actually putting things on paper for some kind of weirdo thesis now im...

2012-02-08T20:08:52Z

chead:

just started actually putting things on paper for some kind of weirdo thesis now im terrified

You can do it babe you are brilliant.

Photo

2012-02-08T19:56:43Z

Gordita: Not Just For the Dollar Menu Anymore

2012-02-08T18:28:26Z

I am thirty-two years old. I know I’m thirty-two years old because every few weeks my best friend and I have a conversation that goes something like this:

BFF: I want to do something really special for my thirty-second birthday, like go back to Galway or pose as a wealthy Japanese businessman and offer David Bowie an obscene amount of cash to give me a foot massage while wearing those silver spandex leggings from Labyrinth.

Me: I think we better stick to Ireland. No offense, but you’re broke and couldn’t be any more Irish if your name was Sunburn McDrinkingproblem so I don’t think the Japanese thing would work. Wait, you’re going to be thirty-two?

BFF: …yes.

Me: Then how old am I?

BFF: You’re also thirty-two.

Me: WHAT?

and so on and so on.

I paint you that little picture only as a side note to illustrate that, despite my dewy fresh skin and inability to sleep through the night without a bottle, I was not born yesterday.

Almost a third of a century has slipped through my well-manicured hands and now, for the first time ever, do I have a nickname about my weight.

Okay, let’s be honest here. It’s entirely possible, plausible even that were one to look through the Vaseline and gauze-covered lens of the past I might’ve had a fat-related nickname kept carefully from my delicate, shell-like ears. But what are you gonna do? Reagan couldn’t fix EVERYTHING in the 80′s and haters, as the internet so wisely tells me, gonna hate.

But now it’s out in the open. Last night Hot Latin Boy and I were chatting about his mother and how much I like her. My personal maternal experience, while a blessing in the potential bestselling roman a clef arena (because it’s not libel if it says “a novel” on the front!), is a little light in the tiny little ball of cherubic goodness arena so I have taken to his viejita in a big way and want to do everything I can to make her happy, as long as it doesn’t involve my cervix or Roman Catholicism.

And she likes me. She can’t say my name –no one here can– but she likes me.

“Whenever I talk to her” reported Hot Latin Boy “she always asks about you. ‘How’s your gordita?’ she’ll say.”

Gordita.

It means “little fat girl” and, strangely enough to American ears where fat = insult, it’s usually an affectionate term for attractive girls with a few extra scoops in their milkshake.

Strangely, it doesn’t bother me.

I thought it would, and the first time I heard it, I felt odd. I felt like it ought to bother me, having been raised in a society where nicknames based on physical characteristics are not generally nice things, especially for women.

And yet I sort of like being gordita. It’s affectionate, non-judgmental, worlds better than “You have such a pretty face” and then a Meaningful Sigh –don’t pretend you don’t know what Meaningful Sigh I’m talking about– as their eyes survey the rest of my body in disappointment.

It’s taking some readjustment, this whole living in a culture where fatness is not a cardinal sin and it’s made me think about how we are so afraid of admitting our bodies exist in space that we just don’t talk about them unless we’re complaining about how they “should” be.

I’m interested in hearing your take on it, especially if you come from a culture where comments or nicknames on weight are acceptable and not shame-based. Put it in the comments.

Unpacking the Fat: People Like Me

2012-02-08T13:29:44Z

1. People like me get thrown off flights, especially if they’re too full, and asked to pay double for the privilege of waiting for the next one.

2. People like me can’t shop in most malls. We get strange looks and downright condescension if we go into certain stores.

3. I can’t turn on the TV and expect to see someone like me, in general. If I do, then that person is almost always being portrayed as something broken to be fixed, or otherwise in a negative light.

4. When I see people like me talked about in the news, it’s about how horrible people like me are, and what is the best way to get rid of people like me.

5. If I go to an adoption agency I will be told that people like me shouldn’t be parents.

6. If I go to an infertility clinic I will be told that people like me shouldn’t be parents.

7. If my child is someone like me (which they have a good chance of being) I will be told I shouldn’t be a parent. My child might even get taken away from me.

8. I can’t open a magazine and expect to see people like me. However I can expect to see ad after ad for products on how to prevent becoming like me, or how to ‘fix’ someone like me.

9. If I ride the subway/bus, I get dirty looks. People don’t think someone like me deserves to sit. If I stand, they tell me that I’m in the way of everyone else.

10. If I take a walk down the street in a populated area I can expect to be told how horrible I am from passing cars, pedestrians, people in shops — anyone I meet. I might even get things thrown at me, like garbage.

11. If I go to the gym I can expect to get talked down to, and treated like the reason I’m there is to ‘fix’ myself from being so broken and horrible.

12. If I drive my car instead of walk it’s taken as proof of why people like me are horrible. If I don’t go to a public gym it’s taken as proof of why people like me are so horrible.

13. There is big money for people who are trying to eliminate people like me. They especially want to eliminate children who are like me. Most other people, even some people like me, think this is a wonderful thing. They hail an ‘enlightened’ future world that no longer has people like me in it.

14. People like me are blamed for the broken healthcare system.

15. People like me are blamed for global warming.

16. People like me are told that we can’t do certain things, and when we do, we’re told that we’re the exception that proves the rule.

17. I pay three times as much as what other people do for clothes, and it’s often much worse quality, style, fit, and selection. Clothes for people like me are segregated in stores and online, if they are available at all.

18. With some regularity the media debates on morning and news shows if people like me should exist, and how best to get rid of us if not.

19. People like me aren’t in trendy establishments. We are either barred from going, or the place can’t accommodate us, or we get condescended to and pressured to leave as soon as we walk through the door.

20. I can wear the same style and cut of clothing as someone who is not like me, and told that while it is perfectly decent on her, it is indecent on me.

21. People like me are told that we shouldn’t leave the house because of how awful we are, but that we are so awful because we never leave the house.

22. People like me are denied life-saving surgeries and the opportunity to donate organs unless we change.

23. My friends and family think it’s their duty to tell me how horrible I am, and how I should change.

24. People like me are told that we are stupid, lazy, immoral, and broken with regularity. I can expect to hear this several times a day.

25. People like me are never the heroes of books or movies. We are usually cast as the villain.

26. People like me have a harder time getting hired. Employers believe that people like me aren’t good representatives of their company, regardless of our skills, work ethic, experience, or talent. People like me are much less likely to appear in employee circulars and marketing materials. There are even workplace groups and contests where people like me are rewarded for altering themselves, and people who aren’t like me are rewarded for not being like me.

27. People like me are told that we aren’t as intelligent as other people. We are told that it is impossible for us to be economists, health care workers, or honest debaters.

28. People like me are told that we are the worst witnesses to our own experience. We are called liars if we relay experiences that do not hold true to what mainstream culture says about people like me. People who call us liars aren’t just our enemies – they are doctors, nurses, teachers, and our own family.

29. For people like me, social events like family gatherings and class reunions are often battlefields.

30. There is a whole month of the year dedicated to eliminating or preventing people like me. It’s called “Resolution Season” and is widely viewed as a positive and constructive, rather than negative and destructive, phenomenon. During this time of the year it’s nearly impossible to watch television, open a newspaper/magazine, read online media, or walk down a city street without being reminded that people like me are undesirable.

31. Many Western countries have publicly funded campaigns which claim people like me are a problem to be rid of.

32. The very existence of people like me is called one of the top problems of our modern age.

DISCLAIMER: Not complete, nor in any particular order. A list like this is always a work in progress. I might edit to add more later. Feel free to add your own in the comments, and I might add them to the list. Thanks to the authors of the many privilege-unpacking lists I’ve seen in my time.

EDIT (2/9/12): Added #26 – #31.

“But my symptoms are real!” :: Tourette’s syndrome outbreak sheds light on conversion disorder

2012-02-08T12:45:15Z

If you’ve been following the apparent outbreak of a tic disorder in a New York high school, you know that investigators there have ruled out environmental causes linked to the school itself. Parents, outraged by the Tourette’s sydrome-like symptoms that have plagued twelve teenage girls in the past several month, are demanding answers. Unsatisfied by the lack of results from school investigators, public health officials, and the victim’s own doctors, they recently brought in the Erin Brokovich team to explore the test the ground water and more.

Health officials are now calling the illnesses with which the young women are presenting conversion disorders. Conversion disorders are psychiatric illnesses in which a person experiences physical symptoms without a physical cause. People with conversion disorder can demonstrate things like blindness, lack of muscle function, paralysis, or seizures.

Parents are reportedly not satisfied with this explanation for their daughters’ and community members’ illnesses. Indeed, watching video of the young women unable to talk, write, or function normally is disturbing, and it’s easy to see how the Le Roy High School community would be frustrated.

As I watched the Today Show’s interview with a few of the young women and their mother’s, you could see the visible vehemence when Dr. Nancy Snyderman suggested that the root of these issues could be psychological. The parents and teenagers quickly denied that this was possible, their justification that they weren’t under any stress and that their symptoms were real.

The thing is, the symptoms in a conversion disorder are real too. The person truly is experiencing tics, or muscle weakness, or difficulty walking. They really do seize – anyone can watch. These individuals are not making up their symptoms (that happens when someone malingers), and their development is not in the person’s conscious awareness.

This last piece is the rub, of course. If it’s not under conscious control, the person isn’t aware that there’s a psychological cause, and so there’s no way for them to deny or disprove it. Patients sometimes say things like, “But I just know something’s really wrong. I just know!” And the thing is, they’re right. There’s something wrong, really wrong. The only difference between the symptoms of conversion disorder and the symptoms of a physical illness is in the treatment. Conversion disorder symptoms are not going to respond, at least not long term, without psychological help.

I admittedly have no idea about the origin of the symptoms among these New York teenagers, and I would never purport to know. But what I am very aware of is the cultural backlash against the idea that our minds can produce physical symptoms.

It’s actually a bit dismaying to see how negatively people react to this idea, and how vehemently they deny it. I want to ask these individuals where they think all physical issues originate – in our brains! Why is it so unimaginable to think that psychological stress could create physical symptoms?

Our brains regulate our hormones and every function of our body, and yet we tend to see our minds as distinct from our bodies. The effects of this disconnect are far-reaching. I think that this contributes to everything from fertility issues to the flu to problems with our sexuality to distorted relationships with food. This is not to say that that all of these things have only psychological bases – certainly, that’s not the case. But we often fail to see how our psychological functioning influences these processes, and in doing so miss out on a real chance of improving our health.

My hope is that, regardless of what is determined to be the cause of these Tourette’s sydrome symptoms in New York, the parents will encourage their children to seek psychological treatment. Even if the cause is environmental, these young women could likely benefit from support around the trauma of the past several months.

you might be as outraged as the community.

Hey, Get Off My Foot!

2012-02-08T11:40:42Z

Yesterday a federal appeals court ruled against California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage. The basis of the ruling is that the ban unconstitutionally singles out gays and lesbians for discrimination. One thing that really struck me was an argument made by those in opposition that federal judge Vaughn Walker (now retired) should have stepped aside and let another judge hear the case. Walker is the judge who found Proposition 8 unconstitutional in 2010. After he retired he came out as gay and in a long-term relationship, and so Proposition 8 advocates argued that he should not have heard the case.

Their belief, then is that in order for a group to get civil rights, everybody but the oppressed group gets a vote, but the oppressed people must recuse themselves from the fight for their own civil rights. To paraphrase the brilliant Dr. Deb Burgard, that’s rather like saying that if someone is stepping on your foot in an elevator, the rest of the people in the elevator should be polled to see if the person should stop. It’s even more problematic than that since typically the oppressing group is gaining something from their behavior.

That’s not how civil rights work – no oppressed group has ever won their civil rights by waiting for everyone else to decide to stop oppressing them, treat them with respect, and give them their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It breaks my heart to see fat people who believe that they deserve the shame and stigma that are heaped on us by society, that they deserve to pay more for insurance, to get lower wages than their thin counterparts, an dbe discriminated against in the hiring process. I don’t need polling data to know that I deserve better than that. In fact, I don’t care if 99% of people think I don’t, someone is stepping on my foot and they need to get the hell off, period. If we want to be treated better, we have to be the first ones to stand up and say that we deserve better, and then demand it. You are, of course, under no obligation to become a fat civil rights activist. My point is that you can if you want, you don’t have to wait for anyone’s permission.

Speaking of insurance and workplace benefits (see what I did there with that segue…) I did an article for Texas CEO magazine about the dangers of “carrot and stick” benefits programs that punish employees who are perceived as unhealthy because of their body size. You can check it out here if you would like! (And as always, comments are appreciated because they make me look popular!)

The Georgia Billboard Project is SO CLOSE – We just need 169 people to find $1.00 in the couch cushions and these kids get $5,000 worth of support from the More of Me to Love Match donation. Large billboards, small billboards, bus shelter signs and tons of media to support these kids are all just 169 donors away. If you haven’t donated there is still time to stand up for bullied kids and be part of this. If you have donated then ask a friend to donate. You can link to http://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/enough-is-enough-the-big-fat-money-bomb/ to give them all the details and the donation links, or send them directly to the solidarity dollar site at http://tinyurl.com/solidaritydollar. It would be awesome to get this done tomorrow!