“Being FAT weeds out the a**holes”

Such truth in this simple statement ;)

They feel uncomfortable thinking about it.

Fat ladies are a constant reminder of what may happen to them.

In other words, fat ladies make them nervous.

That nervousness can translate into unfortunate behavior on a lot of different levels.

None of them right.

The truth is, most girls are scared to death of getting fat.

For some, it is a constant battle.

In their minds, fat ladies represent the enemy . . . at large.

They are a constant reminder of what may happen to them.

And . . .

They equate that with a sad and lonely existance.

It does not excuse their behavior, but I think it goes a long way to help explain it.

Fat ladies are their own worst nightmares come to life.

I’m an overweight woman and have been so all my life, and I have to say, I’ve never been treated rudely by store clerks that I can remember. I don’t recall ever being ignored. (If I ever was ignored, it wasn’t for long… I have NO PROBLEM raising my voice and speaking up. And the way I speak up gets attention.)

And I’ve always gotten good medical treatment, even when I was a poor grad student. It’s no secret: being assertive yet polite and insistent. Plus I suppose I have a kind face and a nice smile. People pretty much gravitate to me and I try to be happy and polite wherever I go. Bottom line is, defensiveness in one person will create defensiveness in others. I found when I gave up being defensive and insecure about my size, that attitude disappeared from others too.

Since I was overweight as a child, I also evolved a razor-sharp tongue. No one messed with me more than once. You don’t win arguments with an English major. Or with an English teacher, which is what I am now. And being a female from the Southern US, and a tomboy plus a gifted female, I rejected all those stereotypes early on and forged my own path. Yes, I’ve encountered a few obnoxious jerks in my time, but haven’t we all. I have found that being prepared with a few zingers can disarm people. Also, a good brutal ignoring can sometimes be viciously effective. (big, wicked grin)

These days, I’m to the point at 38 years old where I say, okay, this is the body I have. As bodies go, it’s not the best and never was. I’m not a super model; I’m a supper model. LOL But this body is all I have, so I’ll work with it, and work around my limitations, and try to improve. Who knows? Maybe I’ll be fat all my life. Maybe I can actually have a shape (other than round LOL). All of this is to the good; all of this will contribute to my health, and at 38 I don’t feel I have to buy into any stereotypes. I just want to be healthy, regain my health, look proportional, and have curves in the right places. And finally, moving from the South to Los Angeles has changed my ideas in many ways about what fat really is.

Because of health issues, I’m now on the weight-loss, change of lifestyle, better eating path, and it’s working, slowly but surely. I don’t know the end result of all this. I don’t have a timeline of “when I have to be thin.” I figure this is going to take a few years. It’s also going to take time for me to adjust to having a different, transformed body.

So overall, I have to say I’m not one that clerks ignore or treat rudely; I simply don’t allow it to happen. When I walk into a store, my view is, they are there to help me; I’m there to spend money, and I will get what I need, and they will be nice to me. Of course they will be nice to me — who WOULDN’T want to be nice to me? :D With that attitude of “I’m okay, you’re okay, let’s get on with it” I’ve encountered very few problems.

Finally, I have learned from some of my dear male friends how to deal with obnoxious jerks. First of all, truly believe in yourself that you are an A #1 okay person. This other person says some shit to you. Huh. Guy must have a problem… can’t be me, I’m a good person. Hey, buddy — what’s your problem? Amazing how well that works. The very few times I’ve been called names, I’ve also walked up to the people who called me names, pirouetted, wiggled my hips, and basically gave it right back to them, which of course shut them right up. I guess that makes me a shameless fat woman. ;)

Cheers, Kate / pusskat1@yahoo.com (it’s okay to post my email)

The fact that people automatically think a person is less of a person because of his or her weight is a sad thing–the fact that people think that anyone with habits that are “potentially” different than their own are less of a person is just as sad. Whether it’s genetic or if someone blatantly chooses to be fat and wears shirts that say “I love being fat”, people are unfortunately going to make their assumptions. I may not think it’s anyone’s business what someone’s assumed personal lifestyle is, but people make those kinds of judgments whether I like or want them to or not.

If a person sees someone without a shirt who you can see most of their bones, one could assume that the person eats like a bird or has some sort of disease, but that may be completely wrong. Whether or not I feel that a person eats like a bird or has a disease, it shouldn’t make me treat that person in a disrespectful way–I may have my opinions about that person based on appearance, but I’m not going to disrespect them.

Some people like parachute jumping. Some like extreme sports. Some people ride motorcycles on icy roads and would ride those roads with no helmet if the laws allowed. Some people smoke. People do a lot of stupid things. Should I research everyone I talk to to make sure they don’t do things that are “stupid” in my opinion to see whether they’re someone I can “be bothered” to deal with? Does anyone do that? No–at least not anyone with a head on their shoulders. –And anyone who did do that would have no friends and many enemies.

(since someone earlier in this message board said businesses can’t discriminate against smoking–I should add that there IS discrimination against smoking in the workplace now–there are insurance companies that are now permitted to fire or hire their employees based on whether they smoke–I fear that weight will be next–I tell you, when people didn’t stand up in opposition when companies started requiring drug tests, it’s like that old political saying with “and when this group of people were having their rights taken away I did nothing” and ends with “and when my rights were taken away there was nobody left to stand up for me”)

If I’m a customer at a store, however I live my personal life and what my personal habits are is not the business of anyone working at that store. They can think whatever they want to their heart’s content, but if they act on those assumptions, they’re stepping over the line.

And for all the personal beliefs that fat just must be unhealthy, it still hasn’t been shown to be significantly unhealthy. The associated risks are lower than those for race, gender, or economic background. So why the multi-billion dollar campaign against fat? Why the hand-ringing, the desperate pronouncements, the promises of a coming epidemic? “I’m sure it must be so,” still isn’t a justification for the abusive treatment of fat people by the medical establishment, cultural leaders, and retail clerks.

As a society we’ve tried weight loss. We’ve tried shame, mutilation, and discrimination to enduce this “treatment”. When can we acknowledge that it hasn’t worked and we need to look for real answers? How many more fat people need to be belittled, denied treatment, or subjected to amputation of working bodily systems before its enough?

I also find it interesting that these sorts of studies bring up the inevitable tag alongs of diet, excersize, genetics, surgery, smoking, and whatever else you can think of that goes along with the discussion of fat articles, whether it has something to do with the subject matter at hand, or not. Since this is the case, I would like to put my two cents in. Fat women are indeed very often treated in a more rude manner than their thinner counterparts. I know this from personal experience. I am a woman who has managed to lose over 150 pounds. When I was heavier, I was very often treated rudely, if not out and out ignored by store clerks, especially if they were thinner women. Now that I am close to normal in my weight, I rarely ever encounter that sort of treatment.

As For the diet and health issues, I have come to the conclusion that it is healthier not to be grossly overweight, and that any little bit of weight loss helps, and sometimes that little bit can lead to more weight loss. I also read the article linked from Barbara about the surgery. I managed to lose my weight without surgery, but from what I have read previously, and gathered from this article, is that the surgery forces the heavy person to do what they could not do on their own, and that is to eat less, or burn more calories than you eat, which is what it takes to lose weight.

This was an insurance plan that charged us $280 per month, btw - and gave us very little in return.

It’ s like they won’t cover B/C either - but will cover pregnancy and birth.

I can’t figure out if they’re just stupid bureaucrats - the low level ones my friend was dealing with were - or if there’s some evil convoluted way it makes sense financially for the insurance vampires, up at the top levels.

There is also the little caveat of “*struggling* to keep their weight where they want it,” and I am guessing that they are struggling to keep their weight what it was in high school or college or before they had three kids, and so on. Can I say this: I hate these people. They are like Satan dressed up as the Messiah and are as much responsible as the fast food industry for the sense of hopelessness experienced by an average person trying to maintain some fitness and nutritional balance in their lives.

Dr. Paul Ernsberger, an expert whose research has shown that the diet failures are doing much more harm than good, tells a story of his appearance at an FDA hearing on the diet combo Phen-Fen. These were the hearings that swiftly approved the use of the drug cocktail that was later linked to millions of cases of heart damage. His testiomy was followed by Professor Judith Stern of UC-Davis. After testifying, she made remarks to the press that anyone who opposed the diet drug should be shot. This is the atmosphere that exists for people raising serious and well-documented objections to the rushed conclusions of a medical establishment that is making a lot of money off fat hatred. This is the atmosphere critics have to deal with. Ones where academic professionals will publicly suggest murder for those who disagree with them. More frightening, though, was the testimony of Jo Ann Mason of Harvard Medical School. She acknowledged the true facts of the drug. That it had potentially fatal side-effects AND that the drug had only been shown to induce an average of 7 lbs of weight loss. She admited all of that, but still said the drug should be approved. That’s scary. That shows what fat people are really dealing with at the highest level. When this is the attitude of experts, retail clerks can hardly be expected to substantively differ.

http://news4a2.blogspot.com/2005/04/fat-like-me-new-demons-of-american.html

I wrote it a few days ago when the report on discrimination was first making the rounds. Any comments I’d make here I’ve already made there.

I don’t agree with your assessment of the statistics on obesity and morbidity or mortality rates. Just looking at type II diabetes there is an increase risk of about 5-8 times among people with BMIs of 35 compared to 22 and less and this is from data compiled between 1976 and 1980. See the NDIC website chapter 9 here.

Its obvious we aren’t going to agree though, so let’s move on.

How would you deal with the discrimination problem. It seems to me that discrimination against certain groups has improved, but its still rampant. We’ve tried to deal with this largely through education and tolerance training. Its my opinion, that the more education you recieve (college or above) the less likely you are to be a discriminator and I think there is good data out there to support that. Is this not the case for “fat discrimination”? These things often get engrained in people at a very young age and then it seems, over time, certain people become untrained, or were never trained due to good parenting, exceptional schools, etc.. From my perspective, there is a basic lack of civility in the culture that is at the root of the problem. People see people they are afraid of, intimidated by, or don’t match the image they see in ads and TV and they turn rude on them instantaneously. I’m sure it is especially prevelant for overweight people, but it also happens for short men, tall women, people who stutter and the list goes on and on.

Maybe we should reinstate “manners” type courses in elementary schools. They were present when I was in school and I think they did me some good. Heck, I’m well passed the age were I should refer to a clerk in Blockbuster as “Sir or Ma’am” but I cannot break the habit and don’t see any reason to do so. It’s empowering to everyone to just be nice, but people rarely seem to realize that not only does it make the reciever feel good, but it makes you feel more positive about yourself. I think our society has largely forgotten this and the instant gratification of being rude and just plain mean has taken hold.

Whenever I think about this I’m reminded of the example of Bobby Knight when he finally got fired for reprimanding a kid for not refering to him properly. Now I would never take it upon myself to defend Bobby Knight, but he had a point. We all see people acting in obnoxious manners toward their fellow community members all the time, especially kids (and I bet most of those clerks in Houston were kids). I know my grandparents tell me stories about how in their days they would get after any kid who was acting up or not showing respect to others, didn’t matter whose it was. Maybe its time we get back to that attitude, at least somewhat. However great any of us think we are as parents, the old saying still rings true “it takes a village”. Our culture is fighting against us all the time, but it is “our” culture and we have the power to change it.

“Fat Free”

It’s mostly about surgery but talks about the medical versus moral judgment about fat.

The thing that fails to get mentioned (though thank goodness for Marilyn Wann pointing it out) is that for all the hyper-response to the 2-times the risk fat people have, smokers have a whopping 26 times greater chance of developing lung cancer than a non-smoker. That’s a correlation that means something.

A body that other people, including health-care providers, see as disgusting is not a body that will receive good care or social support.

Word on that. I wonder how much of the modest risks actually seen in fat people is attributable to the very poor health care they receive. The anecdotel evidence is frightening, and what studies I’ve seen support the belief that health care for fat patients is distressingly awful. And goodness knows going through life being treated abusively by everyone from employers to retail clerks isn’t going to do wonders for one’s health either. Bottom line, we’ve tried to unfatten fat people. Hasn’t made them healthier or even thinner. Its time for other approachs. Educated people not to discriminate seems like a nice part of a new approach to me.

Fat people face discrimination from many other people than insurance providers–like, you know, clerks in retail stores. That discrimination has no financial rationale. In the example in the original post, discrimination is actually expensive: it’s probably causing fat people to take their business elsewhere.

Public smoking bans are in place because there is evidence that second-hand smoke causes harm to people who don’t smoke. There are also policies against wearing perfume in many offices; that’s an indication of allergy, not bigotry. There is no such thing as second-hand fat.

And, “a disgusting body is not a protected body,” means precisely that. A body that other people, including health-care providers, see as disgusting is not a body that will receive good care or social support.