Fat in the Land of Oz

Pictured above is singer Kelly Clarkson, recently described by someone on You Tube as “a big fat pig.” This is what’s considered fat in America, a country that not too long ago managed to come up with a size 0 for women. I regard this as more of a political slam than a fashion statement, an anti-feminist backlash intended to intimidate women who may have forgotten to obsess about their body size for a minute and think about reproductive rights and equal pay and voter suppression and the economy instead. But our fat-loathing culture asks: “Who do these broads think they are, waddling around, offending everyone’s sensibilities instead of focusing on becoming a size 0” – (a literal nothing!). And of course, if your size is a two-digit number you’re obese and shouldn’t even leave the house (for shame!).

There are other things I could write about today: Team America in the World Cup; Dick Cheney everywhere on TV as if he were releasing a new album; how we shouldn’t even dip our military toe into that sectarian quagmire in Iraq; or the Supreme Court striking down a law that said people protesting outside abortion clinics had to keep a 35-foot distance away from patients entering the clinic (because those ignorant, heartless, slut-baby-killers deserve to be harassed up close before they do one of the most difficult things in their lives).

But no, I prefer to revisit last week’s chastisement of Dr. Oz by the U.S. Senate, which has nothing better to do than lambast the host of an afternoon health information talk show for describing two dietary supplements in what Oz admitted was “flowery language.” He hailed them as magical and miraculous – two words that any adult would take literally. The Senate was worried that the now-famous “Dr. Oz Effect” would encourage millions of fat-obsessed women to run out and buy this shit without knowing what the dangers might be! 

Now, it’s true that dietary supplements, from vitamins to magic weight loss elixirs, are greatly under-regulated, but so are numerous prescription medications that have so many horrific side effects you can’t imagine what medical condition would warrant taking them. Yet doctors can freely prescribe them as they see fit. What doctors are stringently regulated in prescribing are “controlled substances,” also known as serious meds that stop pain, ease anxiety, help you sleep, or just make you feel good. Which is why, after an agonizing major surgery, you’re offered Tylenol.

But I digress. The real issue here is that after 40 years of empowering, self-affirming, feminist philosophy, women young and old still view being “fat” as the worst thing that can happen to them. I’ll never forget the late Gilda Radner saying she would rather have cancer than be fat – and that sweet, brilliant comedian died young and  slim – and riddled with cancer.

I haven’t watched Dr. Oz’s show over the past couple of years, but I previously saw it often. I also once met with him privately, back in the 90s before he was a star, because the then-wife of a friend of mine was a friend of his and he saw me as a courtesy to her. I honestly don’t remember what he advised, but I do recall that in person, as on his show, he was kind, non-judgmental, gentle, and seemed genuinely concerned about my health.

Since then as now I was truly fat, not cosmetically chubby or a perfectly normal weight but fat in my fearful imagination, one could say concern was warranted. I was in my 40s then and still dieted frequently. People who are really fat know that any diet (combined with even minor exercise) will take weight off. What no one has figured out is how to keep it off without dieting for life, because what science and medicine understand about real obesity can fit on the head of the proverbial pin. But Dr. Oz is no charlatan and he didn’t deserve a scolding by the Senate. He tells people to eat healthfully and exercise – and when he finds a product he thinks will help, he talks about it. 

My mother used to say that if anyone ever came up with the real magic pill – the one that would take weight off, keep it off, and still let you eat at least somewhat for pleasure, it would be news on the front page of The New York Times. I know Americans can be stupid about lots of things, so just keep her sensible observation in mind. Until that article appears, really fat people will have to really struggle, if they’re willing. The rest of you should just get a grip. You don’t have to be a 0. You’re not a big fat pig. Stop letting the haters manipulate you. Here: have a cookie.

The Tyranny of Healthy Lifestyle Zealots

When I was a little girl in the late-1950s/early-60s (also known as the Olde Days) people were concerned about their own and their children’s health and well-being – but it wasn’t a national obsession supported by social judgment and nanny-state laws. Fat, especially on women, was already considered ugly (as it was ever thus) and women dieted and took prescription diet pills. But nobody under a size 10 thought they were fat and size 0 didn’t yet exist.

Children took their vitamins and got the necessary vaccines du jour, but they didn’t have to wear haz-mat suits to sit in the back of a car or ride their bikes. Most adults smoked and those who chose not to didn’t behave as if their lives were threatened if they caught a whiff of smoke. People were aware of the hazards of high blood pressure and cholesterol, and some amended their diets accordingly, but they didn’t fret over every piece of food they put in their mouths. Getting exercise wasn’t an issue, because it was a part of daily life: people walked, mowed their own lawns, cleaned their own houses (along with their children, who had chores), and kids played outdoors without the schedule of a business executive.

But in today’s high-tech, must-live right, helicopter-parent America, our personal behavior is increasingly governed by law as well as a condemning social attitude, particularly about smokers and fat people that says “I’ve chosen a healthy lifestyle and because you haven’t, you’re increasing the cost of my health care with your bad habits and I resent it.” Yes, there’s a lot of resentment – and outright hate in our social climate because everybody thinks everyone else should live by their standards of good and bad, right and wrong.

This is a social notion that transcends political ideologies. The Left and Right may differ in their beliefs about what’s good, bad, right and wrong, but everyone seems agreed on the idea that their values should reign supreme and be adopted by everyone else. As a result, our social climate is actually un-American, but most folks don’t see it that way – nor do they care.

I can only regard this as Health Fascism based on selfishness, ignorance, and a complete lack of understanding that in a diverse, free society, people have different needs, wants and behaviors, and everyone can be accommodated if we accept that those who differ from us have as much of a right to be who they are as we have to be who we are.

First, a few facts. Fat people and smokers are not the culprits in high health care costs. Overly expensive health care is caused, in considerable part, by treatment and life-maintenance for the über-elderly, severely disabled, and those with serious chronic illnesses. Waste and fraud in health care management, and the simple fact that health care, health insurance and pharmaceuticals are profit-making industries, are what truly make health care, insurance premiums and medications expensive. Never forget: the profit is in treatment, not in cures. Follow the money and examine the greed.

So, when healthy lifestyle zealots support ever-increasing nanny-state laws that make smokers social pariahs and view fat people as lesser humans with no self-control, they are acting out of haughty judgment they have no right to make – and they don’t know the facts.

For example, the dangers of second-hand smoke are a myth [each of the four underscores cites a different source; check them out if you think I’m bullshitting you]. And obesity is not just a matter of overeating and calories in vs. calories out.  “…Genetics, endocrine function, lifestyle, medications and metabolism all play a role in determining a person’s weight.”  The tyranny of the healthy lifestyle zealots is not only prejudice and a misdirection of blame, it has resulted in smokers and fat people being extremely discriminated against in employment and, for smokers, in housing.

I don’t have children; I don’t even like children. But I don’t begrudge them the health care (or nutrition, education, and protection from abuse and neglect) they require. Nor do I resent whatever the elderly, disabled, or chronically ill require. I don’t engage in dangerous sports. But when those who do have accidents and need medical treatment and physical therapy, I have no gripe with that. I believe in the concepts of “each according to his needs” and “live and let live.”

To those who think they’re superior beings and more righteous citizens because they live a healthy lifestyle, I leave you with a quote from the late, great Redd Foxx: “All those health nuts are gonna feel pretty stupid laying up in the hospital dying of nothing.”

Contemplating Valentine’s Day

I think it’s fair to say that, generally speaking, men don’t like Valentine’s Day and women do. Men don’t like feeling pressured to be excessively romantic and having to express their emotions, not to mention spending money. Women like it when men are mushy, especially if they usually aren’t, and getting to hear a sometimes-rare “I Love You” is a thing of joy. And we like getting flowers and chocolate; gifts, period. I believe lesbians feel the same as straight women about Valentine's Day, but their relationships are usually more touchy-feely than straight relationships anyway. I can't speak for gay men.

The best Valentine’s present I ever got was a shipment of filet mignons from Omaha Steaks. It felt very sexy to be the kind of woman who inspired a gift of raw meat. His card was restrained, but since we had only been dating for six weeks when Valentine’s Day rolled around, I didn’t mind. I gave him a shirt – pedestrian, I know, but I couldn’t afford a gold cigarette case. My card to him was one with the photo above in which I wrote a correspondingly sexy message inside. Both of us were pleased.

Some people, men and women, straight and gay, reject Valentine’s Day because they view it as a Capitalist conspiracy among the greeting card, flower and candy industries (which, in the business of marketing, would be considered a clever “cross promotion”). I think that’s rather cynical and humorless, even if it’s become true. However, historically, Valentine’s Day dates back to Ancient Rome, 270CE, when an imprisoned priest was martyred by Emperor Claudius II for falling in love with his jailer’s daughter and sending her a letter signed “from your Valentine.” Priests weren't celibate yet, but those old Romans didn't like Christians, so he couldn't win for losing either way.

What is now an annual holiday is also connected to a Roman spring fertility festival and evolved into a Day of Romance by the 14^th Century. Printed Valentine cards made their U.S. debut in the mid-1800s and traditional gifts were already chocolate and flowers, particularly red roses: the Roman symbol of love and beauty. The Valentine’s Day tradition endured and is celebrated in the US, England, Canada, France, Mexico and Australia, among other countries.

Like many women, I enjoy Valentine’s Day when I have a man in my life and don’t when I don’t. I don’t this year, but I’m not feeling bummed out. This country is in such a state of turmoil, division, anger, want, greed, and need (I really think America is having a nervous breakdown) that I welcome anything pleasant and that celebrates love when hate is going around like the flu.

I painfully miss affection and believe the lack of it is truly unhealthy. There was a study many years ago that separated a bunch of babies in an orphanage or hospital or some such into two groups. One group got a lot of holding, fondling, kissing, cuddling, etc. and the other group got none. The untouched group constantly cried and fussed, ate and slept poorly, and were just cranky little miserables all the time. The coddled group was the complete opposite. I don’t think this changes as we grow up, especially when we mature into sexual beings, as well.

And some kind of love and affection is, I believe, markedly important for the aging and elderly. I wouldn’t be surprised if some future study discovered a connection between a lack of affection and the development of severe depression and even Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. I don’t think it takes scientific genius to figure out that when people aren’t touched for extended periods, they literally lose their minds; affection is as basic a need as food, water, clothing, and shelter.

So, this Valentine’s Day, I’m thinking lovely thoughts. I’m remembering how lucky I was to have had a very loving, affectionate mother, and, how sweet it was when I had certain men in my life (others provided the emotional sustenance of a rock). I’m remembering my half-aunt Mildred (long story…) who, after many years of being widowed, had the courage to marry a second time at the age of 66 (and the even greater courage to divorce him at 76). 

I’m happy for everyone I know – and even those I don’t – who are fortunate to have a Valentine, and I wish all of you a happy, loving Valentine's Day. For those of you who don't have a significant other but want one, I hope you find one soon. And because I haven’t given up hope, I’m thinking positively and looking forward to my own next one. This fat lady ain’t singin’ yet.

The Civics of Health Care - Redux

In July, 2009, I posted the piece that follows: The Civics of Health Care. I have never re-posted a piece, but I feel very motivated to do so, because of a piece on Huffington Post the other day that raised the issue of discrimination against obese people and suggested that this was cruel and unwarranted. Needless to say, as always, the vast majority of comments left by readers vehemently disagreed, citing the ugliness, poor health and high health care costs created by obesity. I am SO tired of this widespread fallacy - and meanness. It has colored my life and continues to do so for millions of others. And so I hope you'll forgive me if I repeat the carefully researched and written piece I created the last time that obesity was named Public Enemy No. 1 by many ignorant people.

I am a fat smoker – and according to the arguments currently (hell, traditionally) being made to define what citizens most need to do to greatly lower the costs of health care is to combat obesity (it’s an epidemic!) and continue to tax, coerce and harass smokers into quitting – which makes me and those like me Bad Americans. I take objection to this Nanny State posture disguised as concern for the greater good, to being made to feel like a social pariah because, in today’s everything-must-be-politically-correct environment, one’s personal “bad habits” have become a legitimate public concern. This doesn’t face or solve the real health care problems and it’s neo-fascist bullshit – and here’s why.

First, according to the National Coalition on Health Care, the cost of health care in the U.S. in 2007 was $2.4 trillion, representing $7,900 per person and 17% of the GDP. Unchecked, this figure will reach $4.3 trillion and 20% of GDP by 2017. The Coalition notes that “Experts agree that our health care system is riddled with inefficiencies, excessive administrative expenses, inflated prices, poor management, and inappropriate care, waste and fraud. These problems significantly increase the cost of medical care and health insurance for employers and workers and affect the security of families.” My being a fat smoker – or not – does not and will not affect the gross deficiencies of the health care industrial complex.

Second, more specifically, according to Pub Med, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health, “Recent estimates suggest that obesity accounts for 5.7% of US total direct health care costs, but these estimates have not accounted for the increased death rate among obese people. …Direct health care costs from 20 to 85 years of age were estimated to be approximately 25% lower when differential mortality was taken into account. Sensitivity analyses suggested that direct health care costs of obesity are unlikely to exceed 4.32% or to be lower than 0.89%. Conclusions: Increased mortality among obese people should be accounted for in order not to overestimate health care costs.”

Third, according to a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, “Methods: We used three life tables to examine the effect of smoking on health care costs – one for a mixed population of smokers and nonsmokers, one for a population of smokers, and one for a population of nonsmokers. We also used a dynamic method to estimate the effects of smoking cessation on health care costs over time. Results: Health care costs for smokers at a given age are as much as 40% higher than those for nonsmokers, but in a population in which no one smoked the costs would be 7% higher among men and 4% higher among women than the costs in the current mixed population of smokers and nonsmokers. If all smokers quit, health care costs would be lower at first, but after 15 years they would become higher than at present. In the long term, complete smoking cessation would produce a net increase in health care costs, but it could still be seen as economically favorable under reasonable assumptions of discount rate and evaluation period. Conclusions: If people stopped smoking, there would be a savings in health care costs, but only in the short term. Eventually, smoking cessation would lead to increased health care costs.”

No honest, reasonable person will deny that there are frequently health problems associated with both obesity and smoking – but it bears noting that because of the physiological dynamics of obesity (such as the development of weight set-points and the fact that one may lose hundreds of pounds but one never loses a single fat cell), there are many fat people who are fat and healthy because of “good” eating and exercise habits.

Similarly, according to Health Clinic: Life Management Health Systems, “New research shows that even among long-term, heavy smokers, the risk of getting lung cancer can vary dramatically – from less than 1% to a whopping 15%. The risk of getting lung cancer was most heavily influenced by age, duration of smoking and how much a person smoked, says Dr. Peter Bach, lead author of the study and an epidemiologist and pulmonary physician at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. `Before this study, anyone who smoked for 25 or 30 years thought that they were at extra high risk of lung cancer when, in fact, there is lots of difference in risk,’ Bach says. …Researchers then applied the model to a sample of 300 people who had undergone cancer screening at the Mayo Clinic and came up with these sample profiles:

-- A 51-year-old woman who smoked a pack a day for 28 years and then quit has only a 0.8% chance of getting lung cancer in the next decade.
-- A 52-year-old woman who smoked a pack a day for 35 years and who continues to smoke has a 2.8% chance of getting lung cancer in the next decade.
-- A 58-year-old man who smoked 25 cigarettes a day for 40 years but quit three years ago had a 4.1% chance of getting lung cancer in the next decade.
-- A 56-year-old woman who smoked two packs a day for 44 years and continued to smoke had a 8.4% chance of getting lung cancer in the next decade.
-- A 68-year-old man who smoked two packs a day for 50 years and refused to stop smoking had a 15% chance of getting lung cancer in the next decade. His risk would drop to 10.8% if he quit.
`At the high end, you're talking about one in seven people,’ he says.”

I’m glad that our smart, skinny, cigarette-battling president is doing all he can to create a sane, workable, economically and medically sound health care system for America, which presently ranks way, way below the fiscal efficiency and medical effectiveness of every other industrial nation in the world. But please, let’s not turn this into a simplistic, finger-pointing process that demonizes fat people and smokers, yet gives short shrift to the cost/care facts associated with extremely advanced age; end-of-life care that regards death as a defeat, rather than a natural and inevitable part of life; the unwanted births of hundreds of thousands of babies who are often doomed to poor pre-natal and childhood medical care and poor nutrition stemming from poverty (not an undisciplined craving for junk food).

Indeed, let’s not ignore the enormous role of poverty (or close to it) in health and health care. It’s easy to sneer at fat people and smokers and say “You’re the reason medical care and health insurance costs are so high!” It’s much harder to take a more honest, detailed, comprehensive look at the problem as a whole and devise a system that cares for everyone, whatever their lifestyle choices may be. Some of us are fat and/or smoke. Others of us breed like farm animals, engage in dangerous sports, or just live longer than humans ever have before. And all of us are victimized by insurance and pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, doctors, and the support services they work with. Let’s keep this a medical and financial issue – and not create a false and mean-spirited social/moral divide.

Anniversary Greetings From the Tower

This blog is two years old today. If it were a person, it would just be learning to walk and talk. I know that feeling. I’ve been writing since I learned how to “letter,” in fact I clearly remember learning how to print and then how to write in script and finally how to type, not in the proper “asdf–jkl;” way, but in my own haphazard combination of touch-typing and looking down at the keyboard, which is what I still do, at about 60 wpm – as fast as a sentence needs to go. I used to walk better than I do now, but I’m working on it. And I talk just fine; some would say too much, too directly, but I ignore them. I have learned to listen – and also how to tune out when necessary.

I began this blog because I wanted to express my opinions about…everything; to write for myself, which in my 35+ year professional writing career I had done too little of; and to speak out on behalf of Smokers’ Rights and Fat Acceptance.

I still believe in Smokers’ Rights, but I’ve thrown in the towel on that one. Smokers have no rights and never will again. Not in the foreseeable future, anyway. I also still believe in the FA movement, but I haven’t made any friends within it, because I have this silly idea that being fat is often connected to what and how much one eats. Those aren’t the only reasons, but they play a big role; just ask anyone who starves on a regular basis in order to not be fat. But my sister and fellow FA-ers choose to focus on the genetic and other legitimate physiological factors that cause/maintain obesity, because they think that “it’s not our fault we’re fat” is the only pathway to Fat Acceptance.

I disagree. I consider “size-ism” to be a legitimate social- and civil-rights issue, regardless of how and why fat people are fat. Human beings come in all shapes and sizes and this should just be accepted as fact, but it isn’t. Many people who are not fat regularly discriminate against people who are, and they’re often downright hateful about it. But I no longer believe there is a pathway to Fat Acceptance. Those of us who are fat are going to have to fight this battle forever while knowing we can’t win. It’s about having self-respect and self-esteem in the face of rejection/recrimination and standing up for oneself instead of apologizing for who and what one is. I think that pretty much defines life for people of all sizes. And while I still see the need for/value in pointing out discrimination and ugly attitudes toward fat people, I no longer believe it’s going to result in Acceptance. People who are not fat will always think that people who are fat and are not doing everything possible to change, are crazy. Like I said, I’ve learned to tune out when necessary.

So now, as MizB VIEWS FROM THE TOWER enters its third year, I’m more interested in and concerned about the broader social and political issues – local, national and global – that have a genuine chance in hell of resulting in change for the better.

These issues include: racism, what and why and how it’s still a very real part of the American psyche and needs to be examined and changed; feminism, what it is and what it means in the 21st century and how modern feminism should be an integral part of larger social struggles (and vice versa); poverty and homelessness, which are increasing in fact but decreasing in public awareness and concern; American politics and economics, both of which are in trouble, outmoded, and fail to serve the common good; climate change and the environment, because the upheaval in nature has been stupidly politicized and insufficiently addressed; immigration and our collective failure to recognize the karmic legitimacy of the changes in our population; religion, its dangers and its blessings, and the inability of those who rightly reject those dangers to recognize the existence and value of a more peaceful, loving, less structured and essentially generic kind of spirituality; the gifts and thefts of technology, which are creating a more interconnected world but, ironically, are also resulting in less real communication; and contemporary culture, its banality, ignorance, aliteracy, social amnesia, tawdry values, and descent into barbarism.

If there’s time, I may also add beauty and decorating tips.

The Civics of Health Care

I am a fat smoker – and according to the arguments currently (hell, traditionally) being made to define what citizens most need to do to greatly lower the costs of health care is to combat obesity (it’s an epidemic!) and continue to tax, coerce and harass smokers into quitting – which makes me and those like me Bad Americans. I take objection to this Nanny State posture disguised as concern for the greater good, to being made to feel like a social pariah because, in today’s everything-must-be-politically-correct environment, one’s personal “bad habits” have become a legitimate public concern. This doesn’t face or solve the real health care problems and it’s neo-fascist bullshit – and here’s why.

First, according to the National Coalition on Health Care, the cost of health care in the U.S. in 2007 was $2.4 trillion, representing $7,900 per person and 17% of the GDP. Unchecked, this figure will reach $4.3 trillion and 20% of GDP by 2017. The Coalition notes that “Experts agree that our health care system is riddled with inefficiencies, excessive administrative expenses, inflated prices, poor management, and inappropriate care, waste and fraud. These problems significantly increase the cost of medical care and health insurance for employers and workers and affect the security of families.” My being a fat smoker – or not – does not and will not affect the gross deficiencies of the health care industrial complex.

Second, more specifically, according to Pub Med, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health, “Recent estimates suggest that obesity accounts for 5.7% of US total direct health care costs, but these estimates have not accounted for the increased death rate among obese people. …Direct health care costs from 20 to 85 years of age were estimated to be approximately 25% lower when differential mortality was taken into account. Sensitivity analyses suggested that direct health care costs of obesity are unlikely to exceed 4.32% or to be lower than 0.89%. Conclusions: Increased mortality among obese people should be accounted for in order not to overestimate health care costs.”

Third, according to a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, “Methods: We used three life tables to examine the effect of smoking on health care costs – one for a mixed population of smokers and nonsmokers, one for a population of smokers, and one for a population of nonsmokers. We also used a dynamic method to estimate the effects of smoking cessation on health care costs over time. Results: Health care costs for smokers at a given age are as much as 40% higher than those for nonsmokers, but in a population in which no one smoked the costs would be 7% higher among men and 4% higher among women than the costs in the current mixed population of smokers and nonsmokers. If all smokers quit, health care costs would be lower at first, but after 15 years they would become higher than at present. In the long term, complete smoking cessation would produce a net increase in health care costs, but it could still be seen as economically favorable under reasonable assumptions of discount rate and evaluation period. Conclusions: If people stopped smoking, there would be a savings in health care costs, but only in the short term. Eventually, smoking cessation would lead to increased health care costs.”

No honest, reasonable person will deny that there are frequently health problems associated with both obesity and smoking – but it bears noting that because of the physiological dynamics of obesity (such as the development of weight set-points and the fact that one may lose hundreds of pounds but one never loses a single fat cell), there are many fat people who are fat and healthy because of “good” eating and exercise habits.

Similarly, according to Health Clinic: Life Management Health Systems, “New research shows that even among long-term, heavy smokers, the risk of getting lung cancer can vary dramatically – from less than 1% to a whopping 15%. The risk of getting lung cancer was most heavily influenced by age, duration of smoking and how much a person smoked, says Dr. Peter Bach, lead author of the study and an epidemiologist and pulmonary physician at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. `Before this study, anyone who smoked for 25 or 30 years thought that they were at extra high risk of lung cancer when, in fact, there is lots of difference in risk,’ Bach says. …Researchers then applied the model to a sample of 300 people who had undergone cancer screening at the Mayo Clinic and came up with these sample profiles:

-- A 51-year-old woman who smoked a pack a day for 28 years and then quit has only a 0.8% chance of getting lung cancer in the next decade.
-- A 52-year-old woman who smoked a pack a day for 35 years and who continues to smoke has a 2.8% chance of getting lung cancer in the next decade.
-- A 58-year-old man who smoked 25 cigarettes a day for 40 years but quit three years ago had a 4.1% chance of getting lung cancer in the next decade.
-- A 56-year-old woman who smoked two packs a day for 44 years and continued to smoke had a 8.4% chance of getting lung cancer in the next decade.
-- A 68-year-old man who smoked two packs a day for 50 years and refused to stop smoking had a 15% chance of getting lung cancer in the next decade. His risk would drop to 10.8% if he quit.
`At the high end, you're talking about one in seven people,’ he says.”

I’m glad that our smart, skinny, cigarette-battling president is doing all he can to create a sane, workable, economically and medically sound health care system for America, which presently ranks way, way below the fiscal efficiency and medical effectiveness of every other industrial nation in the world. But please, let’s not turn this into a simplistic, finger-pointing process that demonizes fat people and smokers, yet gives short shrift to the cost/care facts associated with extremely advanced age; end-of-life care that regards death as a defeat, rather than a natural and inevitable part of life; the unwanted births of hundreds of thousands of babies who are often doomed to poor pre-natal and childhood medical care and poor nutrition stemming from poverty (not an undisciplined craving for junk food).

Indeed, let’s not ignore the enormous role of poverty (or close to it) in health and health care. It’s easy to sneer at fat people and smokers and say “You’re the reason medical care and health insurance costs are so high!” It’s much harder to take a more honest, detailed, comprehensive look at the problem as a whole and devise a system that cares for everyone, whatever their lifestyle choices may be. Some of us are fat and/or smoke. Others of us breed like farm animals, engage in dangerous sports, or just live longer than humans ever have before. And all of us are victimized by insurance and pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, doctors, and the support services they work with. Let’s keep this a medical and financial issue – and not create a false and mean-spirited social/moral divide.

Fat Chance and Slim to None

While I was on blogging hiatus, I gave a lot of thought to whether or not I should continue my Tower rants as I had been writing them, or reduce – or for that matter expand – the range of issues I comment on here. Hard news, in the U.S. and around the world, has been especially serious since national economies started doing excellent imitations of the Titanic last September. Everything from tribal animosities to all-out wars across the planet have become increasingly fierce and unspeakably ugly. Human rights and civil rights are under attack, hunger and illness are global crises, poverty (or close to it) is replacing middle class security. Most people everywhere are scared and struggling in some way or another.

Against this backdrop, I asked myself during the holiday season in December, is it still important to be concerned with Fat Acceptance? Isn’t this a “niche issue,” one (you should excuse the expression) that carries little weight in the face of more massive problems? I hadn’t made a decision yet when, suddenly, January dawned and, with it, Winter Diet Season: the annual blizzard of TV commercials, magazine articles and junk-mail entreaties to take a good look at your fat ass now that the holidays are over and get ahold of yourself and stop letting yourself go. Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig et al are ready, once again, to help us hate ourselves as we are and, international crises aside, focus on every inch we can pinch on our inexcusably flabby bodies.

Since this is an annual event, one that generally runs through March, subsides for awhile, then reappears in early May to terrorize us with the prospect of Bathing Suit Season, I was leaning towards saying: screw it, Fat Acceptance is a losing argument, a ridiculous cause in the eyes of most people; obesity is more feared and hated than leprosy and cancer combined. Why am I trying to fight this battle?

But two things happened that made me re-think the subject: Oprah Winfrey once again made a national issue of her weight, publicly confessing to feelings of great embarrassment and deep shame about having “packed on” 40 lbs. over the past few years. Then, the front pages of tabloids worldwide were displaying photos of Jessica Simpson during a recent concert (seen above) that proved beyond doubt that she is fat!

I am confident that more people, women especially, are more aware of the details of Oprah’s and Jessica’s “weight problems” than the impact of Bernard Madoff’s $50 billion ponzi scam. For the record, Oprah, who has been fat to some degree or another all her life, is 5’6” tall and starved herself down to a size 10 after an extended liquid diet some years back. She was shooting for an 8 but never made it. At her top weight – which is more than she weighs now – she was 237 lbs. and around a size 20-to-22. Jessica Simpson, a non-entity who became a celebrity in large part because she was blonde and size 2, “ballooned” to size 8. (How could that kind of offense not be Page-One news?)

I hasten to remind the vigilantly fatophobic that the average woman in America is still a size 14. Marilyn Monroe, who today in many quarters (particularly those occupied by tweens, teens, and 20-somethings) is viewed as fat, was, at the height of her popularity, size 12; she occasionally went up or down a size, but 12 was her norm. Fat clothing catalogs, which used to start at size 14, now begin at size 12, and “large size” models are generally a size 10 (they need a little wiggle room for the pounds inevitably added by the dreaded camera).

I would love to stop writing about Fat Acceptance, because to me it should be a non-issue. It should be no more appropriate to discriminate against, or detest, people for their size than for their skin color or the shape of their heads. But we are a vociferously fat-hating culture, not just in America but even more so in the U.K. In Brazil, it’s almost illegal to be fat. Nearly every medical ailment known to humankind is attributed to obesity, which used to mean really, really fat, but now means any size that makes you feel you shouldn’t be seen in public in a sleeveless blouse. Essentially, any size that is a two-digit number is now considered fat.

I’m very fond of Oprah Winfrey and have enormous respect for how much she’s done for women around the world to help them value themselves, resist discrimination and abuse, and aspire to vocations that just a generation ago were seen as radical if not absurd. But every time she makes an issue out of fat (hers or ours) – which she does routinely – she undermines her best work and reinforces the idea that women are only as worthy as the size of our bodies. I don’t know anything about Jessica Simpson except that she’s not related to O.J., allegedly is a singer, and is a teen role model. I hear she’s trying to tell her fans that she’s not fat and she is very happy. They don’t seem to believe her.

As our society strives to become greener and leaner (in the sense of consumer spending and energy usage), fat – including not really fat at all – is increasingly being viewed as a symbol of excess, lack of restraint, and greed. The rich? It’s becoming more popular to disapprove of the rich, but we still envy them, still long to be one of them (even though our desire is more covert). But fat? Fat is fair game, always, everywhere, for any reason. Which is why, as a fat person, I cannot abandon the cause of Fat Acceptance, even though it’s viewed with the same credibility and respectability as witchcraft. To do otherwise would make me a loser in my own eyes – and how I see myself is more important to me than how others see me.

Going to Extremes

Yesterday’s news brought word that France is outlawing Internet sites that the government feels are promoting anorexia and bulimia by showing photos of super-skinny people and offering helpful hints for effectively starving and purging. They’re known as pro-ana-mia sites by their viewers. Indeed, the people who frequent these sites – primarily tweens, teens and young women – consider anorexia and bulimia lifestyle choices. They want to be extremely skinny, like the models and actresses they emulate. With classic ana-mia vision, many of them, although already quite thin, perceive themselves as fat and are panicked by every morsel of food they encounter. Are they tempted to eat? Yes, of course, which is why they look to these sites for what is known in their world as “thinspiration.”

This story is distressing on several levels. For starters, it’s apparent that many young women around the world have a phobia about being fat – so much so, that they have no concept of being a normal, average weight; only totally skinny will suffice. They've bought into society's strident anti-fat attitudes – to an extreme. Should they be shielded “for their own good” by a government that wants to keep them from killing themselves? France thinks so.

I'm not so sure. As an old-school American, I bristle at the idea of state-imposed strictures designed to save us from ourselves. It is why, as an obese person and a smoker, I rant against anti-smoking laws and society’s rabid fear of the “obesity epidemic.” However, I’m genuinely distressed that the international thin-obsessed fashion industry has, for decades, “thinspired” young women to hate themselves as they are and motivated them to go to shocking extremes in pursuit of a distorted standard of beauty – like the young woman who illustrates this post. Personally, I think super-skinny fashion models should be banned, along with their pop culture entertainment counterparts (but that’s me being extreme).

But it's a quandary. If I adamantly defend my “right” to be very fat, a condition that many people here and abroad regard as even uglier (and just as suicidal) as the opposite extreme of the spectrum, how can I sanction the suppression of pro-ana-mia Web sites? Wouldn’t I be enraged if pro-fat/fat acceptance sites were banned? You bet!

Our culture (ours, the French, almost everyone) has demonized and ridiculed diversity in body size and has thereby created the pro-ana-mia extreme. Millions of young women, and some men, have been terribly victimized. But as I’ve said before, I support the right of suicide. I was suicidal during a darker period in my life and I assure you, making the decision to kill myself and then taking the necessary action was very difficult to do (and, as you can see, I didn't do it). “Passive” suicide – by radical thinness, smoking, or hard drug/alcohol abuse – this can be considered a lifestyle choice – crazy perhaps, even tragic, but a choice nonetheless.

I’d rather be dead than prevented from living as I choose, and I don’t doubt that the pro-ana-mias would rather be dead than fat. I'm reminded that the wonderful Gilda Radner once told an interviewer (during her SNL days) she would rather have cancer than be fat. Talk about be careful what you wish for! Mostly, I’d rather be dead than controlled by government policy (as the old saying goes, better to die on your feet than live on your knees). We are living in mean-spirited, judgmental, oppressive times – and I fear it will get much worse before it gets better. So, I say, let them not eat cake – and let them visit any sites they want to. They may be sick, but they have a right to be sick. Call me crazy, but I call that freedom.

In Defense of Individualism

In the past couple of days, I’ve published two impassioned posts – one about the oppression of smokers, the other about fat-discrimination – but in neither one did I explain why I so fiercely defend my right to smoke and to be fat without societal interference. Our culture is so focused on Good Health and ostracizing the “risky behaviors” of smoking and obesity that my defending them must seem to many like philosophical bullshit at best, desperate rationalization at least, and insanity for sure. I disagree. Let me explain.

It has always been my nature to be the odd-person-out. I think it’s because I am an only child, as well as biracial, interfaith, and have never been a partner in a long term relationship, a parent, or a member of a close-knit clan. I’ve always felt like a social outcast because, indeed, I’ve always been one. I also spent my early childhood in the 1950s and came of age in the 1960s – decades that were the zenith of the traditional American dream and classic individualism, respectively.

Yes, conformity was the social order of the 50s, but it was still an era that celebrated the “rugged individualist.” And yes, the 60s were about creating a better world for all, but it was also a time when “do your own thing” and “let it all hang out” were the defining credos. It horrifies me that Liberal attitudes, which used to represent the epitome of personal freedom, have come to be synonymous with political correctness and an unflinching seriousness about everything. As a nation, we’ve forgotten that both individuals and societies are in deep doo-doo when they lose their sense of humor about themselves – and life itself.

I confess that I am a pessimist and a fatalist. Some people look at the glass and see it as half empty, others see it as half full. I see it and say “You call that a glass??” As Woody Allen said, “Most of the time I don’t have much fun. The rest of the time, I don’t have any fun at all.” He also said “You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred.” I’ve never wanted to live to be a hundred and I’ve certainly never been willing to give up the things I like in order to make it there. I’ve always preferred sensual gratification (the more immediate, the better) to what’s supposed to be good for me. Why is this crazier than bungee jumping and plastic surgery?

I also believe in death. I don’t fear it and I think it’s highly under-rated as a natural, important part of life. I’m all for capital punishment (when necessary), euthanasia (on request), and the right to commit suicide. These ideas are an anathema in our culture, which prizes life at all costs and is currently obsessed with Going Green to “save the planet.” To me, this is bullshit; the concern is not really about saving the planet, it’s about saving ourselves and “preserving the future” for the children, grandchildren, and beyond. I might feel differently if I had children and grandchildren, but I don’t. I’m basically an “Après moi, le deluge” kind of girl – and I think the planet would be better off if we humans cleared out and let it rest up for a few thousand years. (Apparently, the planet thinks so too, if rampant viruses and killer weather are anything to go by.)

Mostly, I don’t want society trying to save me from myself. After reading my rant about the latest New York cigarette tax, a friend wrote to me – a man who smoked for decades before he gave it up several years ago – and said he believes cigarettes should be outlawed, along with the many other things “that are killing us,” including alcohol, religion, and anything that isn’t appropriately Green. This is precisely the kind of attitude I object to. When the Religious Right expresses its desire to outlaw abortion, birth control, homosexuality (and, so far as I can tell, heterosexuality, as well), contradictory science, pornography, and what they perceive as anti-family feminist values, the alleged Left goes nuts. But what’s the difference? If both ends of the political/societal spectrum want to outlaw whatever it is they happen to object to, isn’t it just a matter of taste?

I have friends who are vegetarian on moral grounds, who are animal advocates/protectionists in the PETA tradition, who are child-absorbed parents, who believe the Green Movement is a sacred quest, who view everything through the limited lens of their personal faith – and I am respectful of them all, even though I think some of the things they believe in span the boring to the ridiculous to the loathsome. But I believe in live and let live and making room for everyone’s life choices in a genuinely pluralistic/diverse society. Accordingly, I reserve my right to eat as I please, smoke if I want to, and die if and when my questionable behavior catches up with me – and all I ask is that I not be thwarted in my actions or despised for my opinions.

My friend who wants to outlaw everything that isn’t good for us says the pleasure he got from cigarettes doesn’t hold a candle to feeling healthy and being able to run up a flight of stairs. I’ve never run up a flight of stairs in my life and can contentedly go to my early grave without doing so. I admittedly live in my head. I’m not a physical person, never have been. As a kid, I never skated or swam or rode a bike, and I avoided Gym and everything it involved. I can still remember arguing with one of my summer day camp counselors about the dubious value of standing out in a sun-drenched field playing softball instead of sitting under a tree reading a book; I wore him out and got to stay under the tree. As an adult, I don’t drive or work out or participate in sports (I hate sports!). Sex has been my sole aerobic activity, and food and cigarettes are my most stalwart companions – and pleasures. I also don’t like animals, children, houseplants, or Nature in general. But that’s me.

Disagree with me if you like, pity me if you must. But just because your choices are considered healthy and coincide with the majority opinion and mine are not, doesn’t make you a better person, it just makes us people with different values. In a free society, that’s called personal choice and you don’t have to like my choices any more than I like yours. Take heart in the fact that I’m in a tiny minority and probably won’t be around too many more years to disturb you with what you regard as my aberrant behavior. Meanwhile, I ask that you consider the importance of allowing people who make different choices to peacefully co-exist with the status quo.

Being Fat-Hateful Is Not Okay

Yesterday, Huffington Post published yet another fat-related story, this one entitled Study Concludes “Fat-ism” More Widespread Than Racism, which naturally brought out the fat-haters, this time outraged that something as inane as discriminating against fat people would be compared with real discrimination, like the kind based on race, gender, religion or sexual orientation.

The core arguments for hating and discriminating against fat people with impunity seem to be the following:

1. Fat people are ugly and when they eat, they’re downright disgusting;


2. Being fat is an unhealthy lifestyle choice and everyone has an obligation to be as healthy as possible;


3. Fat people make life logistically uncomfortable for everybody else;


4. Obesity is weighing down the health care system and healthy people have to pay for it;


5. Fat people want everyone to feel sorry for them, but they don’t do anything to help themselves;


6. Fat people bring derision on themselves by being what they are.

I’m starting to feel that fighting these arguments is like pissing in the wind, but I’ll take another shot (and I’m sure this won’t be my last…)

Fat people are ugly and when they eat, they’re downright disgusting – There’s no sensible way to argue aesthetic values and people can’t control their visceral responses. Fat people can be ugly; anyone can be ugly, if they’re dirty, or poorly groomed and dressed, or rude, or ill-mannered. Lots of fat people are none of these things – and lots of thin and normal-weighted people are all of these things. But it’s been my experience that thin people can do (or wear or be) anything, even if it’s unpleasant, and nobody says boo. But put an ice cream cone in the hands of a neat, clean, nicely-dressed fat person and passersby go ballistic. Contemporary culture – virtually around the world – has decided that fat is ugly; it’s a learned response and it’s ingrained early. Not that long ago, being black was seen as ugly by people of no color; that’s what gave birth to a “Black Is Beautiful” campaign in the 60s. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. A picture of Dawn French, the well-known English actress and fat advocate, illustrates this post. Is she ugly? I contend that if you think so, you’re prejudiced – or at the very least, possessed of a very limited idea of what can be considered attractive.

Being fat is an unhealthy lifestyle choice and everyone has an obligation to be as healthy as possible – This one troubles me the most, because it reflects enormous ignorance about the dynamics of obesity, as well as a twisted view of social responsibility. If you’d like to see documentation of the facts, just do a search for “obesity” in the archives of New York Times.com. You’ll learn what many fat people already know: that actually very little is understood about what makes people fat and keeps them that way. Losing weight is not nearly as simple as eat less/exercise more. Of course some people are fat because of what they eat and not exercising. But many fat people go to great lengths to maintain healthy eating habits and a regular exercise regimen; it’s the core behavior of the Health At Every Size (HAES) component of the Fat Acceptance Movement. But doing so does not ipso-facto make fat people thin, it just makes them healthier. To a far greater extent than is known by the general public, fat, particularly what is called morbid obesity is NOT a choice. But even if it were, when did being healthy go from being a personal priority to a social responsibility? I think it began with the anti-smoking movement, as well as several decades of religious fundamentalism and largely conservative government, which also put affirmative action and welfare in such disfavor, and the availability of birth control and abortions in such peril. As a society, we’ve become more puritanical, judgmental, mean-spirited, ungenerous and unaccepting of individualism than we’ve ever been. We had a brief respite in the 60s (my formative years), but we’ve returned to our old ways (think Pilgrims, Pioneers and Prohibition) with a vengeance.

Fat people make life logistically uncomfortable for everybody else – When the fat-haters post on blogs, they always complain about fat people on planes, buses and subways; we take up more than our fair share of room. I don’t doubt that some fat people indeed spread themselves out in public spaces without concern for the comfort of others. But many fat people – myself included – are obsessed with not doing so. When I fly, I go First Class or buy two Coach seats. When I ride buses, I make a bee-line for the row of single seats. I haven’t taken a subway in years. I also haven’t gone to a theater or cinema or most restaurants because I’m not comfortable and I don’t want to crowd other people. But fat people aren’t the only ones taking up an inordinate amount of room. So do men who sit with their legs splayed (got to give that package room!), shoppers who plunk their parcels on the seat next to them, and [generally] young people who think nothing of putting their feet on your arm-rest or intimidating everyone they encounter into making way for them. Fat isn’t the culprit, rudeness is the problem and it comes in all sizes.

Obesity is weighing down the health care system and healthy people have to pay for it – This is the big one, the reason that the haters cite most often to justify themselves. “Do whatever you want, you fat pig, but don’t expect me to pay for it.” Again, I refer you to the literature and data on health care costs (the New York Times.com archives can help you here, too). Fat folks are not the culprits. As I’ve said before, fraud, mismanagement and greed are what cost the most. The most expensive patient population is comprised of (formerly) healthy thin and normal-weighted people who are living longer than human beings ever have and are incurring enormous long-term care and end-of-life costs. Personally, I wish everyone a long, happy life; live `til you’re 150 and God bless you. For the record, fat people die younger and faster.

Fat people want everyone to feel sorry for them, but they don’t do anything to help themselves – Fat people aren’t looking for sympathy; we just want to be left the fuck alone and not be burned at the social stake. And unfortunate but true, most fat people are fat-haters themselves. They hate themselves and they hate other fat people and they spend their lives struggling to not be fat. The insidious weight loss industry in America alone is now raking in $64 billion annually (it used to be $40 billion). For the most part, fat people and people who just think they’re fat (such as most women who aren’t a size zero) are constantly fighting the battle of the bulge. Why do you think fat people are increasingly submitting to radical weight loss surgery (WLS)? The sad irony is, now that some time has elapsed since WLS became readily available, science is learning that not even surgery consistently produces permanent weight loss.

Fat people bring derision on themselves by being what they are – And women who dress provocatively in public are asking to be raped. Fat and fat people have been turned into a long-running joke by a culture that hates fat. I mentioned in a previous post that virtually every movie and TV program I see contains either a fat joke or fat insult or expression of dismay/concern about being fat. Movies from the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, now, it doesn’t matter. Television sitcoms, shopping channels, game shows, reality shows, even news programs and documentaries: fat is fair game everywhere and one of the few areas of nearly complete social agreement. Everybody hates fat! So what’s wrong with me??

Today, Huffington Post published another article about why [romantic] relationships make you fat. For the moment, I just don’t have the strength…

Diabetes and Fat Acceptance: An Update

Yesterday I saw my doctor for the first time since last September and was surprised to learn that I’ve lost nearly 60 lbs. and my efforts to control the Type 2 diabetes I was diagnosed with last fall have been successful.

You might wonder how it could be a surprise to me that I’ve lost so much weight, but if you spent the vast majority of your days in nightgowns and loungers (nee muumuus), you’d know how easy it is to lose touch with your body. I knew I’d lost some weight, I just didn’t realize how much. The other reason for the surprise is that I wasn’t trying to lose weight, I was just making a concerted effort to eat less sugar and fat and fewer starchy carbohydrates, and instead eat more fruit, vegetables and whole grains, because I was frightened about developing diabetes-related health crises, like blindness, amputation, heart attacks and strokes. I knew I’d lose weight in this process, but since weight loss wasn’t the goal, I didn’t give it much thought.

For quite some time, I haven’t believed in dieting, because (as is the case with 98% of all people who diet to lose substantial amounts of weight) all my past efforts were counter-productive; I always re-gained more weight than I’d lost. But until I was told I had diabetes, I had never tried to change my eating habits for important health reasons, instead of the vanity and self-loathing that motivated my weight loss diets. I’m thrilled that I’m doing well with the diabetes management and I’m pleased to report that, for the most part, it hasn’t been too painful. I haven’t gone hungry or been obsessive about how much I eat, I’ve just focused on the nature and quality of what I eat – and I’ve allowed myself frequent treats.

I take oral medication and now subscribe to two major diabetes publications, test my blood sugar at least once a day, and frequently review the many good diabetes-related Web sites I’ve bookmarked. I’ve put a lot of effort into learning how to cook differently and have discovered that I actually like some of the foods I used to shun because I thought they were obnoxiously healthy. It’s been an interesting period.

But I’m still very much a fat person and will continue to be a fat person even if I lose another 50+ lbs. – and I’m still outraged by the vicious anti-fat sentiments that are part and parcel of today’s Health Fascism. As was the case when cigarettes were Boogeyman #1, many people are breathtakingly self-righteous about their healthy habits and downright hateful about fat people. There are a lot of folks out there who really believe that the obese are shredding the fabric of society, that our size and relationship with food are costing them in substantial economic ways. This is ridiculous and I’ll only consider taking this idea seriously when both government and the sick health care industry eliminate fraud, mismanagement and the profit motive from health care systems.

As a serious, sincere advocate of fat acceptance, I was initially concerned that my fat politics would be undermined by my efforts to control my diabetes (and, frankly, vice versa). It’s turned out there’s no conflict whatsoever. I’ve been doing what I need to do to improve my health and preserve my independence without concern for how these efforts do or don’t alter my appearance. I am who and what I am, which now includes having diabetes and needing to deal with it. I still defend my right (and the right of others) to be whatever size I am and to challenge social mores that demonize fat people. It’s good to confront real health problems (like diabetes) with pro-active vigor. It’s also good to live and let live. I wish the health fascists would shut the fuck up and butt out of my life and the lives of all fat people. And I wish for all those who are coping with diabetes the success and comfort I’ve achieved in managing this disease.

Diet Season

It’s early January, which means `tis the season to be starving, falalalala… Millions of women (and increasingly, men) have annually ushered in the post-holidays Diet Season since back in the day, when a coffee shop “diet plate” consisted of a bunless hamburger, a mound of cottage cheese and a few slices of tomato. But here in the hard-line, born-again Puritan new millennium, food has become very political and Diet Season is no longer just about weight loss, it’s about redefining yourself as a jolly green gourmand of politically-correct eating.

I find this infuriating and fascinating and, in a way, I sort of welcome it, because the battle line between size (fat!) acceptance and orthodox thinness is getting clearer. Thinness used to be about a strict standard of beauty and increasing one’s sense of worth by starving or purging to live up to that standard. Now, it’s all tossed together with the environmental and economic costs of long-distance food cultivation and the morality of the animal rights movement which, in its intensity, is starting to make the anti-abortion crowd look like Spring Break hedonists.

To wit: there was much hoopla in 2005 about a radical diet manifesto entitled Skinny Bitch, written by two self-proclaimed skinny bitches, Rory Freedman (a former modeling agent) and Kim Barnouin (a former model). Now this diet duo have published a cookbook, Skinny Bitch in the Kitch, which provides recipes to support their militant vegan/health food/animal rights agenda. Their first book sold nearly a half-million copies and it’s expected that this companion will strut off the shelves, as well. Rory and Kim take no prisoners in their effort to separate the whole-grain wheat from the high-carb chaff. They call soda (sugar-laden and sugar-free) “liquid Satan,” so you can only imagine what they have to say about a cheeseburger deluxe.

Today’s increasingly-accepted strictures against consuming meat, dairy, sugar, processed grains and anything else resembling “good eats” have become so severe that fatness is regarded as smoking-gun evidence of personal greed, animal cruelty and callous disregard for the future of everyone’s grandchildren. Eating for pleasure, for some time seen as decadent, is now regarded as depraved and obesity is viewed as a wholly deliberate slap in the face of public health and social responsibility. Fat folks have been…lumped…with smokers, alcoholics, drug addicts and the overly-sexually active as the population that is the scourge of decent humanity. I’m amazed candy bars are still legal.

Unlike some of my comrades in the fat acceptance movement, I don’t have a problem with people who want to diet and lose weight. I reject the idea of don’t-fight-fat as much as I reject must-get-thin. I think people should eat what they want and all body sizes are acceptable. I see no reason for not eating meat and diary, but I also see no reason for abusing and torturing the animals that sustain us. I think eating what’s cultivated locally is a great idea, but I'm also okay with shipping food from coast to coast. Interstate commerce is one of the few things we haven’t outsourced to India.

Weight Watchers has launched their Diet Season with a clever new marketing campaign: Diets Don’t Work! Stop Dieting, Start Living! Personally, I think WW is the most rational, natural and sustainable program in the insidious $40 billion diet industry and I’m heartened that they’re even pretending to promote sensible eating as an alternative to frantic crash diets. That said, their use of the fat-acceptance battle cry reminds me of what we used to call in public relations “I wouldn’t hype you” hype, which is the publicity equivalent of the great George Burns’ definition of acting success: “The thing about acting is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”

I think it’s time that we as a culture stopped trying to cut a deal with God (“please don’t create the end of the world and we’ll stop having fun of any kind”) and start accepting that we are indeed at the end of the world as we know it, whether we have another 20 years or another 200; in geological time it’s all a blip on the cosmic radar and we’re essentially on the way out. Which is why, even given my new efforts to eat better now that I have diabetes, I’ll continue to eat some things that make me close my eyes, moan with satisfaction, and feel that life’s worth living. But for those of you who’ve begun your diets: best of luck and season’s greetings.

When a Body Meets a Body

The following post is about a significant change in my health that I both want to write about and share on this blog. Forgive me if this seems too clinical or personal, but we’re all grown-ups here and my desire is to explain things as clearly as I can, because I’m certain that I’m not the only one out here coping with these matters. I hope you find this interesting, readable, and if necessary, helpful.

From the time I was 12 until I had a hysterectomy at 46, I knew I didn’t want children. I also had awful menstrual periods all my life that culminated in several huge fibroid tumors that nearly bled me to death for ten years until I couldn’t take anymore and had the surgery. So you can imagine how surprised I was when, as my recovery began, I felt a sense of loss as deep as that accompanying the death of a treasured loved one. I didn’t regret not having children, but I felt a peculiar sadness knowing that the issue was closed. And much to my astonishment, I missed my period and felt a palpable emptiness where my uterus used to be. It was like the kind of silence you hear when all the water in a large apartment building is shut down, the absence of a low, dull whoosh through miles of pipe that you don’t even know is there until you realize it’s missing.

It took over a year before I felt like myself again and it wasn’t my old self I returned to, but rather a familiar me who was somehow oddly different. Besides reaching puberty, which I don’t remember all that clearly, this post-hysterectomy recovery was the most stunning physical and emotional change I had ever experienced. Until now. And it feels like déjà vu all over again.

Early last month I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and put on daily oral medication to stabilize my blood sugar, as well as pills to lower my too-high cholesterol; it was a double-hitter I’ve never been hit with before. My doctor told me this over the phone during a short conversation in which he also blithely told me, essentially, to stop eating virtually everything I had eaten my whole food-obsessed life: enormous quantities of starch, fat and sugar occasionally garnished with fruit and vegetables.

If you are someone who eats to live rather than lives to eat, you may not get what this means to me. But literally from birth, I was a voracious eater and food was my raison d’etre. My parents called their new baby “our little ravenous doll.” Eating for pleasure, comfort and congeniality is a big part of both of the cultures I was raised with and the joy, indeed the imperative, to be constantly surrounded by whopping portions of wonderful food defined my world from Day One. And I had a lot of help.

My maternal grandmother was a retired professional cook who never quite got the hang of cooking for fewer than 25 people at a time, and who was convinced that I was skinny and on the verge of starvation. When I was in elementary school, every afternoon I went home to my grandparents, who provided childcare for my working parents. One of my most frequent after-school snacks was three large, chocolate-covered, custard donuts. This afternoon repast was just to tide me over until dinner, which always consisted of humongous amounts of whatever was on the evening’s menu. That barely held me until my mother came home later in the evening, when I ate again while she had dinner. Every holiday, every special occasion – in truth, every day – was reason enough for fabulous food. I loved it all and some of my fondest memories, most, in fact, are of great meals I’ve had with family and friends, not to mention a lifetime of hours of contented, solitary eating. Now everything’s different.

As a diabetic with high cholesterol, I can no longer eat whatever I want, in whatever quantity I want, whenever I feel like it. Most folks would say I never could do that, since the result was that I got very fat. I never wanted to be fat, so I tried to lose weight and did, very often, a great deal of weight on several occasions. But like 95-98% of all people who diet, I always gained the weight back, with interest. After repeatedly fighting this battle from ages 9 to 40, I surrendered. I resigned myself to the fact that I would never be thin, never even be an average weight for my height and build. Once I really made my peace with that and finally accepted myself as I was, my weight was quite stable for several years. Then, from ages 43 to 50, a lot of shit happened in my life and, as a result, I got considerably fatter. I dieted a few times during that period but it only made matters worse – as did stopping smoking for five months (that alone added 40 lbs.).

Indeed, my only experience with attempting to alter my diet has been in relation to weight loss; it was never about health. Now health is all it’s about. If I knew for certain that my old eating habits would simply lead to quick, sudden death, however prematurely, I’m not so sure I’d change my ways. But the very real prospects of blindness, amputation, kidney failure, or a stroke that wouldn’t kill me but instead leave me a drooling vegetable abandoned in some heartless institution…these are prospects much more unpleasant than straightforward death! So, I’ve embarked on a new adventure. I’ve done quite a bit of online research and each day I apply all my creative cooking talents to the creation of yummy low-sugar, low-carb and low-fat meals and snacks. I need to start exercising, too, which in my case means daily walks, but I haven’t gotten there yet. For now, I’m concentrating on what I eat, feeling okay about it, and reconstructing my emotional relationship with food. I’m not trying to lose weight, but weight loss will occur, since my new way of eating makes that inevitable; it’s already begun. Only time will tell where I level off, but wherever that is, it is. I’m more concerned with a different set of numbers – and a different way of life.

I’ll keep you posted.

This post is illustrated with the Two of Cups because the number two is regarded as the prime feminine number and symbolizes dichotomy, transformation, self-awareness and perception. In the Tarot, Cups is the suit of emotions and the Two of Cups traditionally signifies lovers presenting themselves to each other in a spirit of profound connection and on an equal footing. But during a number of readings I’ve done for others, this card has come up as a clear indication of the two halves of the self at odds and needing to merge into one – and because the Tarot is in essence a language, over time the cards “speak” to you as you perceive them. This is certainly a time of inner conflict that I have to find a way to resolve.

Pardon Me, My Head’s Exploding

Here’s another one from the “You Can’t Make This Shit Up” file: The Skinny Website (conveniently available at theskinnywebsite.com) is described by its creator/moderator, Rian, as a site for “celebrity gossip and trends pertaining to weight, diet and exercise.” Rian says that for many folks, “celebrity weight-watching has become a hobby” and the site is “just for fun.” Uh-huh, a veritable measuring cup of malnourished monkeys.

In practice, catering to this hobby involves Rian providing a couple of dozen links to photos and commentary on Hollywood’s full roster of Ashleys, Britneys, Jessicas, Jennifers, Kates and Kellys et al, followed by the considered opinions of site faithfuls. There’s no learning curve to slow down newbies, since the pix, plugs and pans are also divided into such categories as celebrity diets, celebrity eating disorders, celebrity skeletons, celebrity cellulite, celebrity baby weight, celebrity flab and bulges and, my personal favorite, celebrities eating.

This last item leads to such shocking food porn as “Hayden Panettiere Eats a Sandwich,” “Kristen Kreuk Eats Ice Cream” and for especially heavy breathing, “Anna Kournikova Eats in a Bikini.” They comment on the celebs and they comment on the food, frequently wishing they could have some of it. I wish I was making this up.

Every day on The Skinny Website, those posting comments discuss such weighty issues as Lindsay Lohan’s ass (too big), Angelina Jolie’s “pencil-thin” arms (too small?; the vote’s not in) and Sophie Monk’s hip bones. I’ve never heard of Sophie Monk. Or her hip bones. As a public service, Rian points out celebs who are “scary skinny” and reminds readers that there is such a thing as too thin, and good health is what matters. Most of them don’t care; it’s all about thin, by any means necessary.

And these folks are harsh! They label numerous 23-year-old starlets as “old and tired,” call cute chubby chicks like Jennifer Hudson “disgusting fat pigs” and express concern that women who are a size 6 are becoming “overweight.” Indeed, it seems that anyone above a size 2 is deemed overweight and needs to stop “letting herself go.” Just yesterday, I read a post in which the writer said if she looked like Beyonce (a disgusting fat pig), she would kill herself. Understandable. Beyonce is not “toned.” She is not “buff.” She is not a “fat-free lady.”

For those in pursuit of self-help, there are handy reference categories, including Fat Loss 4 Idiots, Negative Calories, Master Cleanse and Pregnancy Without Pounds. By the way, pregnant celebs are watched closely so fans can see their “baby bump.” There was a picture of preggers Nicole Richie leaving a gym; her baby bump looked like a small, bad case of gas.

There are a few voices of quasi-reason who champion being fit and healthy instead of tin-rib skinny, who challenge the idea that anyone who is a size 4 can possibly be fat in any way, and suggest that a size 0 (yes, zero) may be a little too small. Radicals! But I did learn a new term I like: body fascism. Those who resist the anti-fat crazies call those fat police body fascists. I love that.

Needless to say, as a fat activist and firm believer in body autonomy, I am aghast at the tone and content of this site. Rian may say it’s all in fun, but this is the kind of crap that promotes fat hate and its attendant behaviors. More important, this site is emblematic of a large segment of public sentiment, not just about stars and size but everybody and size. Those posting on this site constantly spew forth all the standard anti-fat propaganda: fat is deadly, fat people are lazy/ugly/stupid, it’s easy to not be fat (just shut your big fat mouth), thin is the only form of beauty, health is a social responsibility. And on. And on.

I’ve given alot of thought to what I could say to this fat-hating audience that might encourage them to see things in a different light – even just a little. It’s not that I want the whole world to love fat, to approve of it, to praise it. I’d just like to help stop the meanness and the anger. It actually pisses these people off that anyone is fat, even people who aren’t really fat. But to them, anyone who isn’t scary-skinny and hard as a brick wall is fat and fat is about the worst thing you can be, just a notch above pedophiles and double-agents. What a lonely, difficult thing it must be to live and work as a young actress today. How hard it is to be an ordinary person more afraid of fat than a pandemic disease. How painful it is to be fat, even a little fat, in a culture that despises you for it. Why can’t the fat-haters see how much this harms us all?

How can anyone talk to these people about discrimination and false values and a shocking lack of human kindness? They’re on a completely different wavelength and their frequency is more closely attuned to the general public than it is to me. I’ve noticed recently that everything I see on TV, everything – movies and sitcoms from every era, talk shows, newscasts, cooking shows, stand-up comedy, commercials, shopping channels, even documentaries – includes some kind of anti-fat comment. How do you fight that?

When I think about what the fat acceptance movement wants to achieve juxtaposed against rabidly anti-fat public opinion, I’m winded with defeat. I don’t know where to begin. But I’m going to keep thinking about it and talking about it with other fat-friendly folks. Many entrenched social ideas have been changed; it isn’t necessarily hopeless. Maybe. Meanwhile, this whole unpleasant business has made me hungry. I’m going to make a sandwich.

I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille.

Donuts and Stupidity

Today's New York Times offered a blog for reactions to a story that combined new "facts" about the increase in obesity with news that Dunkin Donuts is taking the trans fat out of its goodies. Forget the fact that trans fat is a heart-health issue, not a fat issue, the anti-fat brigade was out in full force to bemoan the existence of fat once again, and to offer a few offhand insults to us fat pigs. I posted the following comments in response -- not as cordial as I should be (more friends with honey than vinegar and all that), but they caught me on a pissed off afternoon...

This is getting so tired… In just the first nine comments, the proverbial Man in the Street has declared that stupidity = obesity (honey, thinking fat = dumb is what’s stupid – and prejudiced), losing weight is “simple”: just say no (thank you, Nancy Reagan II), people eat to make themselves feel better but don’t realize that’s what they’re doing (no, we eat to make ourselves feel better because it feels better!), the government should play a larger role in what Americans eat (anything else you’d like those Bozos to have a say in?), and my favorite: obesity is the fault of selfish feminists who aren’t home to cook good, healthy meals.

Folks, obesity is a very complicated matter and food is only part of the story. In addition, as anyone who’s been on a diet can tell you, weight loss isn’t permanent and yo-yo-ing up and down is genuinely damaging. Finally, and I know you won’t believe this because you’ve been brainwashed to believe otherwise, but obesity per se is not unhealthy. Being unfit is unhealthy. Living with great stress is unhealthy. And being obsessed with every morsel of food you put in your mouth is unhealthy - and nuts!

If people would pay more attention to the war that is bankrupting the nation, the Big Brother policies that make communism look like wild abandon, the chemicals and pharmaceuticals that are poisoning us, and the fear of everything that colors (and stresses) our lives, the mere sight of fat people might not send you over the edge. There’s a very big difference between something that’s dangerous and something you just don’t like. But like it or not, fat is not your enemy. Get over it.

A Word About Choice

It seems that one of the most contentious ideas put forth by the fat acceptance movement is “fat is not a choice.” Millions of fat people know this is true; our own histories tell us this is true. Important, legitimate scientific research tells us this is true.

But on the other side are millions of people who do not believe this. These are primarily non-fat people who make a second job out of staying non-fat. They all think they’re "fat"; they spend their lives pushing back the same five or ten pounds that completely color their existence. Even when they’re not dieting, they eat far less than they want to. They eliminate favorite foods. They exercise compulsively.

As a result, non-fat people manage to stay non-fat. They don’t believe that fat people have no choice, because they work at not being fat, they routinely suffer to not be fat. Most non-fat people cannot eat whatever they choose and stay non-fat – and since they believe that being ten pounds overweight and 100 pounds overweight are the same thing, just a matter of degree (aaaagh!), they reject the idea that fat is not a choice. They buy into the guilt. They buy into the false promises. Most of all, they buy into the infuriating “If I can do it, you can do it” message with which the anti-fat propaganda machine constantly bombards them.

So, there we are, the size equivalent of the Hatfields and McCoys, feuding forever, throwing our experience and science at each other, creating nothing but more resentment and resistance between us. And it’s futile. We will never convince non-fat people that fat is not a choice. Never. Ever. It is for this reason that I contend that the lack of choice should not be the factor we primarily cite to justify fat acceptance.

Indeed, in the larger, more important and more inclusive picture of individual rights, choice is not the point. In combating fat hate, prejudice and discrimination, choice is not the point. Whether or not fat people choose to be fat is irrelevant to our right to not be discriminated against or otherwise punished by fat hate and prejudice.

We have a right to be who we are, whether or not other people approve. We have a right to be visible, to be employed, to be parents. We deserve the same opportunities to dress well. We deserve equitable access to health care, health insurance and life insurance, because whether or not we choose to be fat, everybody – fat and non-fat people alike – brings their own particular baggage to the process of distribution of social services and protections.

Until we feel a sense of entitlement to be fat people – choice or no choice – we will never convince society to treat us with respect as fat people.