metamorphis - not the good kind

I find it intriguing how some people’s personalities change so much when they lose weight. I don’t know that it is a case of the “real” personality coming out, I think it is more likely to be a different side of their existing personality. Perhaps it is a personality evolution (involution?). Whatever it actually is, it can be downright nasty at times. Particularly when it comes former fatties and their feelings toward other fat people.

We have all heard that reformed smokers are the worst when it comes to anti-smoking rhetoric. I think former fatties would also be pretty high up there on the “worst of the reformed” hierarchy. I am sure you fellow fatties have had to listen at some point to a former-fatty waxing lyrical about the wonders of their miracle weight loss, be it from some super-you-beaut-weight-loss-program that either they or someone else have formulated or some amazing-virtually-non-invasive-weight-loss-surgery. Either way, the wonder method is always “so different” to everything they (and by implication, you as well) have tried before. This oh-so-successful way to lose weight is pegged as being anywhere on the diet continuum from “so easy! I never feel hungry! I eat all the time!” to “I had to learn to get used to feeling hungry, I had to learn some self control”. No matter what the method is, if the former fatty believes it has worked (for now anyway) then “of course it will work for you!” and if you politely decline the offer of a free registration coupon/joint weekly weigh ins with the former fatty/a referral to the former fatty’s bariatric surgeon then you are naturally relegated to the lazy-undisciplined-have-given-up-hope school of fatties and are totally beyond all redemption as far as your “well meaning” former fatty friend/acquaintance/relative is concerned.

I have had dealings with someone like this, as I am sure most of you have. I knew a woman some time ago that I found warm, engaging, friendly, accepting and non-judgemental. Or at least she came across that way. I also thought she was gorgeous. She had voluptuous curves and showed them off to her advantage. She dressed with a certain flair but more than anything her aura was warm and inviting. She drew people to her. She was interested and she was open. She made you feel like you were perfect and wonderful just as you were. She rejoiced in the luscious bodies of other zaftig women like herself and she helped other (including myself) to celebrate and accept our own bodies no matter what size or shape we were.

Since I first met her, that woman has lost weight, amongst other physical changes. I didn’t necessarily agree with what she did but it wasn’t up to me, it was her body and she could do what she liked to it. But as she changed, things started to bother me and they weren’t physical things. I realised that her rhetoric regarding self-acceptance was simply that - rhetoric. And it didn’t seem to extend to herself. It was obvious to me that she had deep seated self image issues. Her appearance was more than just taking pride in herself, it was a full blown obsession.  Then, and now, I wish she could see beyond her appearance. I wish she could see the bigger picture.  But I don’t think there is much chance of that happening.

Even though I personally thought she was crazy being so self obsessed, I still figured it was her business. I didn’t have to agree with her politics and who was she hurting other than herself? She was a grown woman and able to make her own decisions about what she was going to implant/inject/paint her body with (or conversely, what she was going to remove/loose from her body). But then things got nasty.

Suddenly, seemingly overnight, this woman became a very vocal and outspoken fat hater. She began to lash out at fat women: at fat women she knew in person and at fat in general. She equated fat with giving up and not maximising self potential. She began to espouse the laziness and undisciplined nature of fat people. She pandered to the idea that fat people eat all day long (and eat crap food while they do it). Again and again she said that fat is “disgusting”. She spoke of weird and wonderful (more weird than wonderful) methods to rid her body of fat. She decried anyone who wasn’t trying to lose weight (at least, anyone that she though should be). Gone was the warm, caring, accepting woman I had met several years previously. She had been replaced with someone else. Someone else entirely.

I am sad that the woman I first met is no more.  But what can I do? Life is often about choosing one’s battles and this one is not for me. Not for lack of trying because being me, I have tried. But to no avail. She has chosen her path and I have chosen mine. She will continue to inject, peel, colour, pluck and reshape her body and I will carry the fat that she so despises and live a life I am satisfied with. I think I have a pretty good idea who is happier with themselves.

tick, tick, tick, tick…. fatty BOOM bah!

According to yet another Australian boffin, “the obesity ‘timebomb’ has already gone off”. Well excuse me while I wipe that nasty adipose from my Chanel suit…

Associate Professor Katherine Samaras informed a federal parliamentary health committee inquiry that 60 per cent of Australians were overweight or obese. Personally, I would like to know where she got her numbers from because that is a considerable increase on all estimates I have seen thus far. I would also like to see a breakdown of that 60% to ascertain how many people are actually “overweight” and how many are “obese” and “morbidly obese”, not to mention how many of these fatty boom bahs barely scrape into the “overweight” category. Call my cynical but I bet a goodly percentage of the percentage are a mere BMI point or two into the designated fatty range and I sincerely doubt that these people are causing the health system any more “stress” than their “average weight” counterparts.

Samaras goes onto completely destroy any credibility she may have had when she says that obesity is the “underlying cause” of many individual health complaints, including “a majority of non-genetic breast cancers”, heart conditions, diabetes and birth complications. Fat in itself does not cause these health issues. It may well be correlated with them but it does not cause them. Just in case you didn’t get that, correlation does not equal causation. And as for birth complications, I have yet to see any convincing studies that can prove that fat causes perinatal complications. Sure, there are plenty of studies claiming fat causes such issues but when you actually pull those studies apart, they are less than convincing. I strongly believe that the attitudes of medical staff toward fat pregnant women has a lot more to do with any complications than the fact that the pregnant woman is fat.  Samaras goes onto complain that hospitals treat patients for “the symptom” rather than the underlying cause (obesity) so the real cost of the fatties is largely (ha ha) hidden. Methinks the Associate Professor has herself a little confused and hasn’t caught up with the fact that excess adipose has not been proven to cause any of the health issues she mentions and that it is more than possible that the fat is a symptom of the health issues rather than the other way around. But that would be far too logical wouldn’t it? And if we think like that, well then we won’t be able to blame the fatties for everything and we can’t have that. No, no, that just wouldn’t do because then people like the Associate Professor and Professor Paul O’Brien and all their cohorts would be out on their backsides and have to find something more constructive to do with themselves.

Samaras maintains that 3/4 of hip replacement patients at St Vincent’s were overweight or obese. She doesn’t mention that the majority of hip replacement patients are over 65 and as we progress in years, it has been proven that extra weight can be to our advantage and that mortality rates for seniors is lowest for those who are fat and highest for those who are thin. She then digs her hole even deeper by dragging out the 400lb strawman to prove her point. OMG, she had a 30 year old patient that weight almost 200kg. The horror! The humanity!

ONE PATIENT.

And I will pretty much bet that even prior to the days of the obesity epi-panic that there were people of that age and that weight in existence. There always has been people like that and we have not suddenly been invaded by 400lb fatties as the Professor and her ilk would like us to believe.

Oh, oh but that fatty costs $12,000 a year in insulin alone…

Ok, maybe s/he does but how much do car accident victims cost? How much do sports injuries cost? How much does keeping extremely premature babies and people on life support cost? And breast cancer and other cancer treatments? And funnily enough, it isn’t mentioned whether this particular patient has Type One or Type Two diabetes and it doesn’t mention if this patient has private health insurance or not. No, it is just easier to fan the flames and make out the this ONE PATIENT is costing YOU THE TAX PAYER all this money when all they have to do is lose weight. Much easier, not necessarily accurate but so much easier…

And as for the bit about overweight women spending more time in hospital after giving birth, well that has already been debunked, as has the claim regarding cardiac patients.

Then we have another straw(wo)man dragged out, this time a 500lb fatty from Royal North Shore Hospital. Senior dietician Vanessa Brenninger has whine that that the hospital had to spend $57,000 in order to treat this fatty during her stay in intensive care. I am sure Ms Brenninger wouldn’t mind telling us how much the care of an average weight patient with similar health issues came to, would she? Interestingly, it isn’t mentioned why this fatty was hospitalised in the first place and what the hell her weight has to do with the care she needed. No, it just more convenient to make out that all that money was needed because the woman was fat. Not just because she was SICK and happens to be fat. (Interesting also that the female patient becomes a male patient in the course of the article).

And comes the part that made me laugh out loud. After all her whining and bitching, the good Professor has the gall to admit “Not everyone can become obese…Some are genetically susceptible. It’s very predictable. We don’t need specialised genetic tests. We only need to look at the parents and grandparents.”

My desk is starting to get an head imprint from me doing the *headdesk* so often…

So Ms Associate Professor “I-obviously-have-absolutely-no-bloody-idea”, all that carry on you have just carried on with is basically null and void because unless you have come up with a way to identify the fat gene (or all of them) and to change the way our bodies are genetically predispositioned, then there is no way any of us fatties can truly overcome our fat/e. Sure we could probably move up and down the scale to some extent but it would be more than likely that we would always be overweight and that going up and down the scale would probably do us more harm than good. So ultimately, our fat is something we cannot do anything about. Perhaps you should remember that. And remind all your medico pals while you are at it.

stuff always happens when I am off doing stuff…

I have been off line for almost 24 hours and it seems that the sh*t has really hit the fan in the Fatosphere during that time. There have been rumblings for the last week or so but for now, from what I can work out, at least one blog has been taken down, which is unfortunate because I wanted to see if there were any responses to my comment. Not to mention I want to read all the other comments that were apparently posted after my connection went kaput last night.

For what it is worth, my position on dieting is this:

If you want to diet and you are of legal age (ie not a minor), then that is your choice. However, I do not have to agree with your choice. I do not have to support your choice. I do not have to listen to you wax lyrical about the weight you have lost, the weight you want to lose or anything else to do with your diet. I do not believe that the Fatosphere or the FA movement is the place for discussion or support of diets. I do not believe the Fatosphere or the FA movement is the place to support dieters in the undertaking of their diets. Everywhere else in the world already does that. Perhaps it is naive to consider the fatosphere as a ’safe space’ for fatties but I think it should be a space that is, at the very least, free of pro-diet campaigners and campaigns. As far as I am concerned, saying you support fat acceptance and the concept of (or people undertaking) weight loss diets is akin to saying you support apartheid and racial equality. Or that you are fine with gay people, you just wouldn’t want to be gay yourself. It just doesn’t work. These things are mutually exclusive.

Personally and it goes without saying this is only my opinion, after all this is my blog. I don’t have an issue with people choosing to eat particular foods in a particular way as long as the goal is not weight loss. Diabetics for example, are required to adhere to a specific diet in order to maintain their blood sugar levels etc. That is completely different to going on a diet in order to lose weight. If you want to get fit, great. If you want to lessen your IBS symptoms by eating different things, wonderful. If you have a gluten intolerance, then you would be silly not to change your diet in order to accommodate that. If you want to become stronger, lift all the weights you want. If you want to improve your physical endurance, go for it. Just do not expect, or even ask for, my support in your undertakings to lose weight.

Of course things are not always that clear cut.  But for the most part, I will not support diets or dieting. Which is, in my mind at least, a different thing to not supporting weight loss in any way, shape or form.

On a totally different note, Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there!

International No Diet Day!

from Largesse

Take the Pledge!

I Pledge:

• That I will not diet for one day, on May 6, International No Diet Day.
• Instead of trying to change my body to fit someone else’s standards, I will accept myself just as I am.
• I will feed myself if I’m hungry.
• I will feel no shame or guilt about my size or about eating.
• I will think about whether dieting has improved my health and well-being or not.
• And I will try to do at least one thing I have been putting off “until I lose weight.”

out of the mouths of babes (literally)

I can’t find much online about this but a few weeks ago I caught the end of a segment on one of the daily “current affairs” shows. I use scare quotes because what they feature is really a very poor excuse for current affairs. Usually it is chasing down con-men, dissing the rival network or promoting the latest fad diet. You know the sort of show I am talking about.

What caught my attention that particular night as I was walking past the lounge room was this: parents were removing their children from a state school in Queensland because of the school’s controversial new junk food policy. This sort of thing isn’t new, schools have been introducing policies regarding lunch box fare for a while now and in my state there has been new legislation introduced about what can and cannot be supplied by school canteens/lunch services. My son’s school has such a policy and while it isn’t strictly policed, it is recommended that students do not take cake and chips to school and they are not permitted to take lollies or soft drink of any kind.

What was shocking about the school featured in the segment I saw was the bizarre timetable being imposed upon the students for when they could eat their food. Students (children aged from 4 - 12 years) were only allowed to have one sandwich at 10am after which they engaged in compulsory exercise for half an hour and then student were permitted only a small piece of fruit or cheese or a small yoghurt at lunchtime (12noon). Nothing else was to be eaten throughout the entire day. So from about 8:30am until about 3:30pm (give or take a few depending on how the child got to and from school) these growing children were only allowed to eat one sandwich and either a piece of fruit, a piece of cheese or a small yoghurt.

You can’t tell me that this is healthy - those little kids would be so hungry and so depleted after a busy day at school. So why didn’t the parents just pack more food for their children? Well many of them did but the teachers inspected the student’s lunch boxes and removed any food that was not permitted. Which means anything other than the regulation sandwich and one piece of fruit/cheese/small yoghurt was confiscated. No wonder parents were removing the children in droves.

My son is nearly 11 and he takes one sandwich to school, usually with cheese or vegemite or some such in it. He also takes at least 2 pieces of fruit, usually 3. And a muesli bar or the like. And a little packet of nutella (hazelnut) spread. And sometimes a home made fruit muffin or savoury scone. Some days he doesn’t eat it all. Most days he does. He has the spread and a piece of fruit at morning recess. He has the sandwich, another piece of fruit and the muffin/scone at lunchtime and he has what is left at afternoon recess or straight after school. I cannot fathom him making it through the school day on what Park Avenue State School is expecting their students to exist on. If my son’s school tried to implement such a draconian regime, I would be doing exactly what many of the Park Avenue School parents did - finding him another school. And fast.

all about the kids

Apparently children as young as three need personal trainers and mini-exercise machines to help fight childhood obesity.

I am without words.

What happened to ballet, hide and seek, chasey, riding bikes and generally being a kid? Obviously I am living in the past.

And parents, be sure never to allow your child to eat anywhere other than at home. Because if they do, they will catch TEH FATZ and it will be all your fault.

But there is an easy way to solve the problem once it eventuates (because it will, undoubtedly, eventuate). Just send the now-not-so-little-darling off to fat school.

Again with the *headdesk*

you can pick your friends but you can’t pick your family

My grandmother turns 88 next month. She would be appalled that I have publicly stated her age but the possibility that she will find out is minimal enough that I will take my chances. She doesn’t smoke and never has to my knowledge. She isn’t much of a drinker, rarely if ever at the very most. And she, in her own words, “keeps herself nice”. For those of you unfamiliar with the nuances my grandmother likes to use, “keeping yourself nice” means staying slim. My grandmother is less than 5 feet tall (she has shrunk as she has aged) and she probably weighs about 110lb at most, probably less. In my lifetime, she has only ever put on weight once and that was when she was prescribed steroids for medicinal purposes. I would bet that is the only time in her life she put on weight because every picture I have seen of her throughout her life, has her as the petite woman she is today. Weight has never been an issue for her. In her last letter to me she noted that she has always been “lucky” in that if she does happen to put on a “few pounds” it “just falls right off” when she cuts out dessert.

Personally I wonder if it has always been that easy for her because for someone who has been slim in all the time I have known her and for someone who says she can lose weight “just like that”, she seems awfully preoccupied with other people’s weight gain. I remember her having digs at my mother regarding her weight. My mother was 5′3″ and stocky like her father (my grandfather). The only time she was thin was when she was extremely stressed, like when she was in an abusive marriage. From when I was born (when she was 27) to when she died at age 46, mum was never smaller than a size 16. I think she maxed at a size 20 but was generally around a 16-18. While she was overweight by the charts, she wasn’t huge by any means. And as a child I had no concept of her being fat or thin, she was just my mum. I do remember her bewailing her weight at times but I never thought she had any reason to be so concerned about her shape. She looked fine to me. But I do remember my mum complaining to her older sister on the telephone about my grandmother’s comments about her weight. I also remember my grandmother making comments about my cousin’s weight, my auntie’s weight, my uncle’s weight, my brother’s weight and my father’s weight. Pretty much everyone in the entire extended family has been criticised about their weight at some point, and if not about their weight then about something else. My grandmother is a very critical woman. She stands in judgement of everyone and everything. No one is up to par as far as she is concerned and she will always, but always, find something to berate you for. Or she will slip in those subtle digs when she thinks you aren’t paying your full attention to her. This is probably why most of her family are no longer on speaking terms with her. Or they will be in contact with her for a few years and then run for the hills and hide for the next 5 years to get over the trauma. I kid you not.

There have been times when I have not had contact with my grandmother for over a year, times when she has pissed me off so much that I simply withdraw and don’t reply to her letters and pray to the gods that she doesn’t phone me. It might sound awful but it is a matter of self preservation. People have tried to point out to her that her manner is somewhat caustic to say the least but then they just become the target of her wrath so really, there is little point trying to get it through to her than she should generally just keep her opinion of other people to herself. Tact is not her strong point and neither is subtlety. Right now I am limiting my contact with her once again. I will send her a birthday card next month. But I won’t be writing a letter to put in it. And I sure as hell won’t be sending any pictures that have me or The Man in them. I am sure you can guess why. A few months ago I wrote to my grandmother and I enclosed some family portraits we had taken last year. They were nice photos. Great ones of the kids and pretty decent ones of The Man and I. The Man and I hadn’t planned to be in the photos but when we got to the sitting and mentioned we didn’t have a family photo, we were convinced by the photographer to have some done then and there. I was just thankful I had put some lipstick on before I left the house that morning (vain, I know but you get no apologies, I like to wear lipstick!). So we ended up with these quite nice family pictures and I thought my grandmother would like to add one to her “hall of fame” gallery which features the entire family over a time frame of more than 35 years. I guess I should have thought more about that before I sent them.

It should be of no surprise to you at this point that my grandmother’s reaction to the pictures wasn’t exactly what I had been hoping for. She goo-ed and gah-ed over the baby which was nice but then she had to slip in the weight comments. You know when someone says “Haven’t you grown!?!” in relation to an adult that it isn’t meant in a complimentary fashion. And then she had the gall to flat out ask me if our (thin) son eats the same food as The Man and I do and if he does (eat the same food) why did I think Son was so slim (and by implication why The Man and I aren’t)? Well gee, the fact that Son’s biological father’s family are all slim wouldn’t have anything to do with it would it? And the fact that, despite what people might think because of my and The Man’s weight, our family eats a very well balanced diet wouldn’t have anything to do with it at all  would it? Talk about pander to stereotypes, grandmother of mine… I was ready to write a scathing letter back to her. I was ready to rip strips from her for her judgemental attitude. I was ready to go into full scale rant mode. But I didn’t. And I haven’t. I haven’t replied at all. I don’t know if I will. And if I do, I don’t know if I will bother to address the issue at all. Would it be worth it? I doubt it. Would it change her? I sincerely doubt it. Would it make me feel any better? Minimally. Would it be worth the frustration and angst? Probably not.

Or maybe that is just me taking the easy way out. I’m not really sure to be honest. What I do know, as harsh as it sounds, is that I am extremely glad I am nothing like my grandmother - thinness be damned.

seeking contributions

I am seeking contributions from fat women for an anthology focused on living as a fat woman in a thin-centric society. The aim is to challenge the negative stereotypes surrounding fat people and to show that fat women have a diverse range of interests, achievements, experiences and lives. I would love to hear from anyone out there who has something to contribute. I am particularly (but not exclusively) looking for contributions from:

• fat women who have achieved excellence in their field or profession
• fat sports women
• fat women of colour
• queer or transgender fat women
• fat women with a disability
• fat women over 60
• fat women under 20

Basically if you have something to say about living as a fat woman, then I would love to hear from you!

Email expressions of interest to fatlotofgood @ internode dot on dot net

Please include a brief outline indicating which area of life as a fat woman you would be willing to write about.

every woman has an eating disorder? (take two)

Self magazine provides a list of habits that can indicate ‘disordered eating’. You could be a disordered eater if any of these behaviours apply to you and negatively affect your health and/or interfere with your daily functioning. The warning signs are:

• A very strong fear of gaining 5 pounds
• Following strict food rules
• Dieting for more than 3/4 of your life
• Use of diet pills or laxatives
• Fasting or juice cleanses to lose weight
• Overexercising
• Cutting out entire food groups from your diet (except for religious reasons)
• Eating the same ’safe’ foods every day
• Extreme calorie restriction
• Thinking about food more than 50% of the time
• Obsessive calorie counting
• Intentionally skipping meals to lose weight
• Bingeing and/or vomiting
• Smoking to suppress your appetite
• Lying about how much you have eaten
• Weighing yourself daily, if it becomes obsessive
• Consistently overeating when you are not hungry
• Eating a lot of no (or low) calorie foods
• Having concerns about your eating or weight that interfere with your life
• Considering foods to be good or bad
• Visiting pro-ana or pro-mia web sites
• Adopting a vegetarian diet solely for weight loss

I find this list particularly interesting because I know I have had times in my life where I have been doing all but 5 of those things. I can reel off the names of women I know who do several (or more) of these things all the time. I think every woman I know has done at least one of these things on a regular basis at some stage of her life. It makes me wonder if Doctor Stacey’s Every Woman Has An Eating Disorder site isn’t right on the money…

Oh, and I think weighing yourself every day IS obsessive. If it has got to the point where you have to weigh yourself every morning then you are obsessed with your weight. End of story.

Every woman has an eating disorder?

Please ignore the links at the bottom of this post. I cannot work out how they got in here. I didn’t put them there and when I go to edit the post, the links are not there (so I can’t delete them). I am not deleting this post (yet) because of the comments attached to it.