Jeff Dinelli at The Left Coaster just sent this email to his daughter’s vice principal.

Ms. (Vice Principal),

My name is Jeff Dinelli, and I am the father of two (local school) students, one of whom is (my daughter), a 6th grader. I am writing to express my extreme concern over a Physical Education project that started this week in Mrs. (Physical Education teacher’s) class.

The kids were to enter their height and age into a computerized program, which informed them of their “ideal” weight and percentage of body fat. They have been instructed to count their daily caloric intake. Wednesday night I picked up a pizza on the way home from (my 2nd grade son’s) little league game and (my daughter) was frantic because the box didn’t indicate how many calories were in each slice.

She and her friends now discuss each other’s weight, body fat, and how many calories they ingested the night before.

Frankly, I am furious. Let’s leave aside the very real problem of the overweight children in the class who assuredly are suffering from utter embarassment right now because they are heavier than their classmates and are surely being harassed for it. We live in a culture where the ideal of what a female should look like is extremely unrealistic. From the models on the covers of magazines, to actresses on television and in movies, girls are taught to starve themselves to match up with their role models. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you of the horrific prevalence of serious eating disorders such as Anorexia nervosa, Binge eating and Bulimia (if you need help please Google the Center for Mental Health Services or the National Institute of Mental Health).

If an “ideal” weight or percentage of body fat is taught to 12-year-old children in school, it should concentrate on the absurdities of what our culture expects girls to look like and the often deadly diseases that can easily begin to affect young women who become obsessed with squeezing into the latest fashions and looking “good” exposing their midriffs or wearing that two-piece bathing suit at the pool.

There are many ways to teach the importance of proper nutrition and exercise without being told what they “should” weigh or how their bodies “should” look.

I would like this program justified, though I cannot think of a way that could possibly be done.

Yay for Jeff! And lucky for his daughter to have such a great father. (And I say that even though he’s a Hillary supporter. :-p )

There’s more at Jeff’s blog. I hope he gets a good response… although I’m not optimistic. There’s a lot of pressure on educators to make children more focused on, and more fearful of, their own waistlines.

Joss Whedon’s new show, “Dollhouse,” released (or perhaps had leaked) this pre-casting description of one of the recurring characters:

November
20’s, any ethnicity, beautiful and heavy. Another Doll, a hopeful child in the house and everyone else you need her to be outside. A comforting, radiant presence, who tends to get fewer of the criminal gigs and more of the personal ones. Recurring.

(Empahsis added). I remember reading that and thinking “cool.”

Now the casting choice for November, Miracle Laurie, has been announced. That’s a picture of Ms. Laurie to the right. Not exactly “heavy,” is she?

I’m annoyed, but not surprised.

To be sure, there’s nothing wrong with casting a thin actress in a part originally written as fat. I’ve done a little theater, and I know that often minds change once actors read for parts. No doubt Miracle Laurie hit just the right notes for November, better than anyone else who auditioned, and that’s why she got the part.

But. Four points.

1) This sort of casting choice is a one-way street. By which I mean, producers will decide that a thin actor is right for a character who was originally concieved of as fat, and so rethink the character. But it will virtually never be the case that a fat actor is seen as right for a character originally concieved of as thin.

2) If a thin actor has the right “look,” then producers will make allowences for them being less than perfect in other ways. So, for instance, David Boreanaz — who wasn’t much of an actor on the first season of Buffy – was cast for his looks and his potential. And he grew in the role, and became a lot better as an actor. Fat actors are rarely given that chance to develop.

3) Because of who gets a chance to develop, I suspect that frequently thin actors are, objectively, better actors. This is because they get bigger parts early on and become seasoned actors, and seasoned actors are better actors, all else held equal.

4) I wonder how frequently “any ethnicity” on a casting call turns out to be “white” once they’ve actually cast the actor?

(I suspect that points 1-3, above, apply as much to actors of color as they do to fat actors. When the musical Miss Saigon originally opened on Broadway, they cast a white actor in an important Asian role, because the role required a star and there weren’t any Asian actors with that stature. Casting decisions like that become self-fulfilling prophesies.)

The New York Times reports that social scientists have once more demonstrated the obvious:¹

Fat Bias Worse For Women

Based on body mass index, which is a measure of body fat based on height and weight, a normal weight is in the range of 18.5 to 24.9. The study found that women begin to experience noticeable weight bias — such as problems at work or difficulty in personal relationships — when they reach a body mass index, or B.M.I., of 27. For a 5-foot-5-inch woman, that means discrimination starts once she reaches a weight of 162 pounds — or about 13 pounds more than her highest healthy weight, based on B.M.I. charts.

But the researchers found that men can bulk up far more without experiencing discrimination. Weight bias against men becomes noticeable when a man reaches a B.M.I. of 35 or higher. A 5-foot-9-inch man has a B.M.I. of 35 if he weighs 237 pounds — or 68 pounds above his highest healthy weight.

The study also revealed that women are twice as likely as men to report weight discrimination and that weight-related workplace bias and interpersonal mistreatment due to obesity are common. The researchers found that weight discrimination is more prevalent than discrimination based on sexual orientation, nationality or ethnicity, physical disability and religious beliefs.

“However, despite its high prevalence, it continues to remain socially acceptable,” said co-author Tatiana Andreyava.

“Despite its high prevalence, it continues to remain socially acceptable”? Uh-huh. Doesn’t it seem more likely that because of its social acceptability, it remains highly prevalent?

Especially since what they’re really measuring is perceived discrimination and bias. All those other forms of discrimination are less socially acceptable to state openly than weight bias; they are therefore more likely to be kept secret, and less likely to be noticed as discrimination. So this study doesn’t necessarily show that discrimination based on “sexual orientation, nationality or ethnicity, physical disability and religious beliefs” necessarily happens any less often than weight-related discrimination; it may be that these other discriminations happen just as frequently, but are more frequently kept secret, and so less likely to be perceived as discrimination.

1. Which is a very useful think for social scientists to do, in my opinion. (back)

(This is a edited comment I left on one of my favorite blogs.)

Wonderful post. But the comments section here - mainly B.C.’s comments — make me want to scream in frustration.

Fat Acceptance… Just what MLK, Jr was fighting for–so chubby white women could avoid lynchings,
michelin men being burned in effegies on front lawns, etc.

Fat is beautiful. Just what my family who ran like hell to get away from the lynch mobs in Mississippi was praying for–the rights of fat white people to feel good about themselves.

It’s true no one has been lynched for being fat (although fat people have died due to lousy good medical care for fat people). It’s also true that anyone who says “fat rights is just like the black civil rights movement!” is being an idiot.

But so what? Being Black is not like being fat is not like being female is not like being queer is not like being disabled is not like being Asian is not like being trans is not like being poor is not like being…

No marginalized group’s experience is exactly like any other’s. No one’s experiences are interchangeable. But the legitimacy of fat activists’ complaints doesn’t depend on us showing our experiences are exactly like the black experience, or the lesbian experience, etc..

It’s about justice.

The reason fat activists have formed a movement is that it’s unjust to be denied good medical care because we’re fat; we think it’s unjust that we can get fired for being fat; we think it’s unjust that we face job and wage discrimination because we’re fat; we think it’s unjust that we can be charged more for basic services (like insurance) because we’re fat; it’s unjust that people glance at us and assume that we’re lazy and care nothing for ourselves; and yes, although you’ll sneer at this as “the right to feel good,” it’s unjust that fat people are taught from childhood to think of themselves as deficient, wrong, and disgusting.

Anit-fat bigotry isn’t wrong because it’s the same as facing lynch mobs. It’s wrong because it’s unjust. It’s unjust because we’re human and don’t deserve to be treated as second-class people because of the shape of our bodies.

That — not the claim that being fat is at all like being black — is why fat activists fight.

See also: Kate Harding and Red No Three. (I didn’t read Red’s post until after I wrote this one, but there’s a lot of overlap).

Tara at Fatshionista writes about people of color and the fact acceptance movement:

There are reasons why people of color aren’t flocking to the fat acceptance movement, and they’re probably not the reasons you’re thinking of. […]

I also need to say that if I hear the “fat is the last acceptable oppression” meme one more time, I am going to scream (louder). Fat hatred is often blatant, shameless, vitriolic, and completely public. But guess what? So is racism! (And classism, heterosexism, ableism, and sexism.) Racism is institutionalized into our laws, our classrooms, our work places, and our daily interactions. Just because some white folks think it’s unacceptable to say the n-word, doesn’t mean that racism is gone or that it’s not “acceptable.” When people in the fat acceptance movement say that fat is the last acceptable oppression, it alienates and invalidates the struggles of people of color, who know first-hand that racism not only exists, but that it is also very much “acceptable” in polite society.

Another offensive myth that I hear parroted around fairly often is that people of color are more accepting of fat bodies, and that men of color love a “thick” woman. Let’s just say that that is NOT my experience. In many different Asian communities, that is the opposite of the truth. By Taiwanese (where my mom is from) beauty standards, my 5′4, size 20, size 10 shoe body is enormous in almost every sense of the word. The last time my mom went to Taipei and tried to buy me a pair of shoes, the vendor asked her if they were for a man. The last time I saw my uncle 8 years ago (when I was a size 16), his friends laughed at me and he said that he wanted to put me on a diet program. Of course, Asians and Asian culture is not a monolith, and this standard is not true for everyone, everywhere. In fact, among other communities of color, it is not necessarily true that bigger women are more accepted. Our communities are also capable of internalizing fat-hating messages, so to say that people of color are more accepting of fatness is not only false, but it also marginalizes us further and contributes to perpetuating the invisibility of our struggles with our bodies.

I don’t agree with everything Tara writes; for instance, I don’t agree that the fatosphere rarely brings up the connection between class and access to healthy food. (I rarely see it brought up anywhere but the fatosphere). But it’s a great post.

Hat tip: Racialicious, which also quotes this great post by Fillyjonk:

…As people who are interested in social justice, we have a responsibility to give a shit about causes other than our own major concerns. Any oppression diminishes us. I am lucky enough to have a skin color that people can ignore, a relationship that I can get officially recognized, and enough financial stability that I don’t have to worry about where the rent is coming from. That means that racism, homophobia, and classism don’t affect me as much as fatphobia and misogyny; it means I could ignore them if I wanted to. But I invite them into my consciousness, not because I’m a glutton for emotional stress, but because I want to live in a just society. And I believe a just society is one in which the concerns and the marginalization of others matter to us.

Nobody is asking us to give up being fat activists and be anti-racism activists instead. But these things are not mutually exclusive; even if we don’t have the resources to do active work for both (or some other additional activist issue), we can give a shit about both simultaneously. If you do have the resources, by god, keep it up, but I know I just don’t have the energy to try to address all inequities and injustices. It’s hard enough to keep talking about large-scale attempts to disenfranchise and vilify fatties. But even if this isn’t a place where every oppression is equally addressed (which I don’t think anyone expects or even really needs), it’s really crucial that it be a place where every oppression is considered and important. That means that we do not minimize or dismiss people’s concerns. Right now, it means we listen to Tara when she talks about the things that hurt or alienate her; that we believe that these things are alienating; that we take this into account in the future; and that we understand that this awareness is not an unfair onus, but part of the greater work of social activism.

On the same subject, I’d also highly recommend this post at The Rotund.

So I was dinnering with some cartoonists (and a couple of normal people) the other night, and we got on to the subject of an argument I had on another occasion. Asked what the argument was about, I had to admit it was about fat advocacy.

But I really hesitated to admit it.

To steal a phrase, “I hold what most people consider unorthodox views about fat (i.e. that it’s not some kind of full-body malignant tumor).” And — as I admitted at dinner — I sometimes hate to talk about my views on fat, because doing so tends to get other people to classify me with the folks who wear tin foil hats to fend off the aliens. It’s not a comfortable feeling.

I went into it a bit anyway, and tried to make it funny. But it’s a problem. I have to get over my fear of being seen as a nutcase crank, I guess.

Via Junkfood Science and Feministe, a few Mississippi legislators have proposed the following law:

Any food establishment to which this section applies shall not be allowed to serve food to any person who is obese, based on criteria prescribed by the State Department of Health after consultation with the Mississippi Council on Obesity Prevention and Management established under Section 41-101-1 or its successor. The State Department of Health shall prepare written materials that describe and explain the criteria for determining whether a person is obese, and shall provide those materials to all food establishments to which this section applies.

The bill’s lead author, Representative W.T. Mayhall, Jr., told Sandy at Junkfood Science that he is sincere about this bill, although he realizes that it has little chance of passage.¹

This is madness.

UPDATE: I want to add a couple of quotes from the discussion taking place at Big Fat Blog.

First, GinLiz writes:

Extremely obvious hate legislation like this makes it easier to pass less extreme legislation. When next year folks propose some anti-fat school cafeteria legislation or something, the fat people and others in the state won’t react strongly to it, because they will think to themselves “well this is far more reasonable than that crazy bill last year. This one makes sense and could work!” Providing an extreme example distracts people from the “milder” hatred. In fact, I’ll bet that this bill will be rejected, and people will say “well good, now we can focus on smarter ways to eliminate obesity. Let’s form a new task force to work on some passable legislation.”

She (he?) is right. Extremist proposals like this move the entire discourse of acceptable anti-fat discrimination further towards the discriminatory end. How much more reasonable will this make a proposal to have schools put fat kids on a separate eating plan? Or the next case of the state taking a fat child away from her parents?

Wallflower writes:

I’m not going to make comparisons between racial discrimination and fat discrimination, I’m going to point out that this is de-facto racial discrimination. Several non-white ethnic groups have genetic tendencies towards more adipose tissue, higher BMIs, and the appearance of carrying more body fat. African Americans, some Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics are the major groups that generally run to large. African Americans are statistically taller than the average population, which even in non-fat individuals can give the appearance of carrying more adipose tissue. This is carte blanch permission for restaurants to racially discriminate based on subjective measures. Trust me, the whiter a restaurant wants it’s particular clientèle, the fatter the non-white clientèle is going to look to them.

UPDATE THE SECOND:

More discussion of this can be found at Kate Harding’s place, and at the following links I swiped from Kate: JoGeek, The Rotund, the already-linked Big Fat Blog, Lindsay, Rachel, and Thoughtracer.

1. In case you’re wondering, Mayhall is a Republican. One of the bill’s co-authors is a Democrat, however. (back)

In case you haven’t noticed, my blogging has been lighter than usual since October. Well the main reason for that has been because I’m pregnant. I told my co-bloggers, so they wouldn’t think I was abandoning the site..

Now that I’m in just out of month 4, I’m finally happy to report that my life doesn’t revolve around the fear of throwing up on strangers. :) For a while, from months 2-4, I was battling morning sickness, and the usual first trimester sleepiness. I’m still concerned about a few things like the fact that at almost 19 weeks I weigh the same as I did when I got pregnant. In fact, one of the most fascinating things about pregnancy is the way it has altered my eating habits and my metabolism. When I was in the throws of morning sickness, for some unknown reason the more unhealthy the food the more likely it was to stay down. I’ve never eaten so many McDonald’s Big Mac’s in my life. What’s even funnier is the fact that I ate that kind of food and lost 6 pounds. I felt like I couldn’t possibly eat enough food to maintain my weight, and I was even more shocked when I read that I was supposed to eat 2600 calories a day (300 extra calories per fetus). I’ve always been a person who loves eating and food, and by medical standards I’m in the overweight category, but suddenly, I didn’t want to eat, and these two little fetuses were performing liposuction on my thighs and butt. My husband kept joking about the fact that I had the incredible shrinking booty, which he thought was bad and my mother and brother thought was great. (Now, there’s a cultural difference if there ever was one–West African ideas about booty beauty and White American ideas about booty beauty.) Fortunately, I’ve gained my 6 pounds back, but I seem to be stuck right at the same weight. I promise I’ll write more about this since it really seems to be the one issue that is bothering me the most–I keep wondering how I’m going to gain 30 lbs in 20 weeks.¹

Of course, I’m going to write about the pregnancy because there are so many juicy issues. The gender issues are obvious, but other issues like body image (which I alluded to above), medicalization, racism, and the rampant classism/materialism that surrounds birth and children. I already have some good stories to tell already, so be prepared. Plus, when the little ones are born, I’ll even have some baby blogging to do.

1. For those who don’t know the weight gain recommendation for twins is higher, but doctors also seem to be all over the place in terms of what they suggest. My OBGYN suggested a 44lb weight gain for a woman of my height who is of average weight. Since I’m overweight, she suggested 30-35 lbs. (back)

From Consumer Health Digest (January 8, 2008):

“Kimkins” diet fraud unmasked.

Eleven former members of the Kimkins Diet Web site are suing Kimkins founder Heidi “Kimmer” Diaz for false advertising, fraud, unjust enrichment, and negligent misrepresentation. The complaint alleges that (a) Heidi Diaz falsely claimed to have lost 198 pounds in one
year, but in fact remains morbidly obese, (b) members’ lifetime memberships were unjustly terminated, (c) Ms. Diaz made unjustified claims that the diet is safe, (d) members using the diet plan suffered medical complications that included hair loss, heart palpitations, irritability, and menstrual irregularities, and (e) Diaz’s Web site displayed phony “success” stories that used photographs she obtained from Russian and Ukrainian sites with ads from women who wanted to meet prospective husbands.

The plaintiffs’ attorneys are seeking certification of the suit as a class action. Last June, Diaz attracted national attention and collected more than $1 million through PayPal after the supermarket tabloid Woman’s World published her claims with before-and-after pictures purporting to show how her appearance had changed. However, the “after” picture was not Diaz but had been downloaded from a Russian site. KTLA-TV has broadcast segments of a deposition in which Diaz admits to lying.

Her Web site contains a “confession” in which she rationalizes what she did but maintains that her program is effective.

Virtually all weight-loss plans make promises that will not be delivered for the vast majority of their clients. This one only stands out, I think, because of the fake photo scam.

From now until 2008, I’m gonna have a little fun and post images. Some of them I’ll have comments about, others I’ll just be posting to say “Hey, cool, look at this!”

I don’t know who drew this. I do know that it was commissioned by an ad agency in India, to advertise a health club, which is too bad because it implies that the image is intended to be mockery. I don’t read the drawing that way; it seems to me that the illustrator actually drew Batman with a great deal of sympathy. I like this drawing.

Other ads in the series included a fat Superman and a fat Spiderman. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they didn’t do a Wonder Woman; I think the far harsher way our culture views fat women would have made it impossible to do a Wonder Woman ad that didn’t seem mean-spirited.

From M. LeBlank at Bitch PhD:

Both fat people and gay people who are trying to fight bigotry spend a lot of time arguing that their condition is genetic. It’s pretty easy to see why: it seems like a very obviously bad thing to hate or discriminate against someone for something that is not within their control. So if you can just show someone that it’s genetic, or “it’s not a choice,” then you will show that they are being an asshole for judging you on that basis.

The thing is, I think this argument is selling the concept of “acceptance” really short. […] Arguing that things are out of someone’s control, and thus beyond criticism or bigotry, is a seductive tactic because it mirrors the arguments that are used against race discrimination. But the problem is, it’s the wrong metric.

“Choice” or “environment” is the wrong way to determine what reasons are good reasons to hate others. Discriminating against or hating someone for being fat or gay makes you an asshole because there’s nothing wrong with being fat or gay. Not because it’s not a choice.

We have your son.We are destroying his ability for social
interaction and driving him into a life of complete isolation. It’s up to
you now…Asperger’s Syndrome

The NYU Child Study Center has a new public education campaign designed to create awareness of psychiatric disorders. Ads appearing in magazines and on NYC billboards and kiosks are mock ransom notes signed by specific psychiatric disorders: ADHD, Asperger’s Syndrome, autism, bulimia, depression and OCD. Here’s the ad for bulimia (Description: Cut and paste words from magazine text form a ransom note: “We have your daughter. We are forcing her to throw up after every meal she eats. It’s only going to get worse. –Bulimia” Below the note the ad says, “Don’t let a psychiatric disorder take your child” and gives info for the NYU Child Study Center.):

Text for the other ads reads:

We have your son. We will make sure he will no longer be able to care for himself or interact socially as long as he lives. This is only the beginning…Autism.

We are in possession of your son. We are making him squirm and fidget until he is a detriment to himself and those around him. Ignore this and your kid will pay…ADHD

We have taken your son. We have imprisoned him in a maze of darkness with no hope of ever getting out. Do nothing and see what happens…Depression

We have your daughter. We are making her wash her hands until they are raw, everyday. This is only the beginning…OCD

The NYU Child Study Center, celebrating its tenth year and the relaunch of its public information website AboutOurKids.org, says:

The idea behind the “Ransom Notes” is that, all too often, untreated psychiatric disorders are holding our children hostage. These disorders rob children of the ability to learn, make and keep friends and enjoy life.

“Ransom Notes” may be shocking to some, but so are the statistics: suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people ages 15 to 24, and serious emotional problems affect one out of 10 young people, most of whom do not get help. The strong response to this campaign is evidence that our approach is working. We understand the challenges faced by individuals with these disorders and their families. We hope to both generate a national dialogue that will end the stigma surrounding childhood psychiatric disorders and advance the science, giving children the help they need and deserve. We want this campaign to be a wake up call. Please join the dialogue.

And people are joining the dialogue. The Autistic Self-Advocacy Network (ASAN) has gathered 14 other disability rights organizations and issued a joint letter (.pdf file) calling for withdrawal of the ad campaign. (There’s also a petition for anyone to sign in support of the ASAN joint letter and appeal.) In part, the letter reads:

While the “Ransom Notes” campaign was no doubt a well-intentioned effort to increase awareness and thus support for the disabilities it describes, the means through which it attempts this have the opposite effect. When a child with ADHD is described as “a detriment to himself and those around him,” it hurts the efforts of individuals, parents and families to ensure inclusion and equal access throughout society for people with disabilities. When individuals with diagnoses of autism and Asperger’s Syndrome are told that their capacities for social interaction and independent living are completely destroyed, it hurts their efforts for respect, inclusion, and necessary supports by spreading misleading and inaccurate information about these neurologies. While it is true that there are many difficulties associated with the disabilities you describe, individuals with those diagnostic categories do succeed – not necessarily by becoming indistinguishable from their non-disabled peers – but by finding ways to maximize their unique abilities and potential on their own terms.

Individuals with disabilities are not replacements for normal children that are stolen away by the disability in question. They are whole people, deserving of the same rights, respect, and dignity afforded their peers. Too often, the idea that children with disabilities are less than human lies at the heart of horrific crimes committed against them.

The letter also notes that the ad campaign supports the idea that people with these psychiatric disorders — note that autism and Asperger’s Syndrome are labeled psychiatric disorders here — may be dangerous to others around them.

Does anyone else’s mind jump to Columbine-type scenarios when they see “children” and “hostage” linked? Mine did.

h/t to Stephen Drake at Not Dead Yet

Cross-posted at The Gimp Parade

From The New York Times:

Obesity rates in women have leveled off and stayed steady since 1999, long enough for researchers to say the plateau appears to be real. And, they say, there are hints that the rates may be leveling off for men, too.

The researchers’ report, published online at cdc.gov/nchs, used data from its periodic national surveys that record heights and weights of a representative sample of Americans. Those surveys, said Cynthia L. Ogden, an epidemiologist at the National Center for Health Statistics and the lead author of the new report, are the only national ones that provide such data.

Dr. Ogden added that the trend for women was “great news.” Obesity rates have held at about 35 percent since 1999, convincing her that the tide had changed. “I’m optimistic that it really is leveling off,” she said.

Men’s rates increased until 2003, when they hit 33 percent and stayed there through 2005-6. Dr. Ogden said she would like to see a few more years of data before declaring that men’s rates had stopped increasing.

Here are some takes on the story suggested by Paul Ernsberger of Case Western . (Any mistakes here are probably my fault, not his.)

1) There are two government data sources being drawn on here; the frequently-updated Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance (BRFS) survey, and the less-frequent but more reliable NHANES survey.

Why is NHANES better? First of all, because the BRFS is a phone survey, it relies on people’s self-descriptions to get height and weight data; but self-descriptions can be mistaken or dishonest. NHANES measures and weighs its subjects to get the data, which is expensive, but more accurate.

Second of all, although both surveys attempt to measure a representative sample of Americans, BRFS excludes people without phones and people who just have cell phones, making it less representative.

Why does this matter? Because the evidence that there are marked increases in obesity (BMI > 30) in every state since 1999 is based on the BRFS; as I understand it, NHANES doesn’t show such an increase. But the BRFS is less reliable.

2) Obesity rates are equal between men and women now, even though statistically weight loss diets and other weight loss methods are used much less by men than by women. Like a lot of other evidence, this suggests that weight loss methods are not successful at reducing obesity rates.

3) A huge number of people will take credit for the plateau in weight. Every purveyor of weight loss advice and programs will claim credit.

4) From the point of view of promoting health, the most important issue is to promote weight stability, and to focus on health indicators other than weight, such as blood pressure and cholesterol.

Inspired by this post on Hoyden About Town (thanks to Bean for pointing it out to me).

UPDATE: Great comment from the discussion at Hoyden: “What was so unmarketable about a pirate dora doll?”

So I watched the new season of The Business, IFC’s oh-so cutting-edge parody of the movie business. Hey, look! Lance, the vain, shallow character very into his sexiness, comes back from the between-season break fat! And he initially tries to bluff past the problem! Hoooo-hah! Funny!

(But don’t worry, after some episodes of funny, funny fat suit jokes, he’s back to his thin self.)

Then I watched the new season of 30 Rock, Tina Fey’s critically-acclaimed mainstream sitcom that prides itself on quirky humor as it makes gentle fun of the TV business. Hey, look! Jenna, the vain, shallow character very into her sexiness, comes back from the between-season break fat! And she initially tries to bluff past the problem! Hoooo-hah! Funny!

(But don’t worry, after a few episodes of funny, funny fat suit jokes, she’s back to her thin self.)

Then yesterday I finally got around to watching the season premiere of Ugly Betty, the critically acclaimed dramedy that prides itself on not going along with the shallow appearance-obsessed bigotries of the rest of TV while it parodies the fashion business. Hey, look! Amanda, the vain, shallow character very into her sexiness, comes back from the between-season break fat! And she initially tries to bluff past the problem! Hoooo-hah! Funny!

(I haven’t watched any of the subsequent episodes yet. My guess is that after 1-3 episodes of funny, funny fat suit jokes, Amanda will be back to her thin self.)

So, remember:

1) Priding yourself on being original is no reason not to use a hackneyed fat suit gag.

2) Becoming fat is the oh-so-funny just desserts vain, sexy characters receive. It’s ironic, get it? Get it?

To be fair, 30 Rock made some feeble gestures at parodying the stupid tastelessness of anti-fat jokes on TV shows like… uh… 30 Rock. To me, this came across more as a attempt to have their cake and eat it too than as sincerely giving a damn about their support of bigotry against fat people.¹

But at least 30 Rock, loathsome as the fat suit plotline was, doesn’t pretend to be a progressive show that’s questioning norms of attractiveness. But for Ugly Betty, which is so sanctimonious about appearance issues,² to pander to anti-fat bigotry this way is extra-special, isn’t it?³

By the way, Ben Silverman, one of Ugly Betty’s executive producers, also co-created and produces The Biggest Loser.

1. Especially when they merchandise the bigotry they were supposedly making fun of. (back)
2. I have nothing against sanctimony on appearance issues, as long as you really mean it and apply the critique to your own work. Ugly Betty doesn’t. (back)
3. Not that this was even the most loathsome thing about that episode of Ugly Betty; the most loathsome thing was the critique of the shallow fashionistas trying to demonstrate how oh-so-very sensitive they are by using disaster victims as props, even as the episode’s script tried to demonstrate how oh-so-very sensitive Betty is by using disaster victims as props. (back)

From Kate Harding at Shakesville:

So, the “Guess The Rotund’s Height and Weight” game gave me an idea. (Oh, and hey, if you want to see a scatter graph of the results, there’s one here now.) I talk a lot about how BMI is bullshit, but we all know talk is cheap. Photos of people who actually fall into each category, however? Say a lot.

Thus, I have created the Illustrated BMI Categories Project, to demonstrate just what “normal” and “overweight” and “morbidly obese” really look like. I’ll continue to add photos until people stop sending them — if you’d like to participate, please send a (worksafe) photo along with your true height and weight to katesblog at gmail dot com. I may not use all the ones I get, but I appreciate the courage of anyone willing to send one. (Oh, and I’m also creating a general Shapely Prose Readers photostream, so let me know if you want to be in that.)

It’s really awesome.

TRIGGER WARNING: However, please keep in mind that it features photos of people of different body types along with their weights. As Mandolin writes in comments, “I really appreciate this project, but you might want to put a trigger warning in the post. Weights are listed with the photographs and that can be problematic for people who are still dealing with vestiges of a disordered mindset.”

(Thanks to Sailorman for the tip.)

I cringed when I read the title of this BBC article: “Diet Choices ‘Written in genes.”

The claim: twin studies suggest that “Identical twins were far more likely to share the same dietary patterns - like a penchant for coffee and garlic.”

The Kings College researchers looked at a total of more than 3,000 female twins aged between 18 and 79, working out their broad preferences using five different dietary “groups”.

These included diets heavy in fruit and vegetables, alcohol, fried meat and potatoes, and low-fat products or low in meat, fish and poultry.

…

Professor Jane Wardle, from University College, said that the findings, and other similar research, pointed to genetics playing a “moderate” part in the development of preferred foods.

She said that it was possible that genes involved with taste, or the “reward” chemicals released by the body in response to certain foods, might play a role.

“People have always made the assumption that food choices are all due to environmental factors during life, but it now seems this isn’t the case.

“It also suggests that what parents do to influence eating habits in childhood are not necessarily as important as we thought - and that a lot of effort may need to be made with young people as they become independent in adolescence to steer them onto the right course.”

This feels, to me, like a lot of spouting based on preferences for garlic and coffee. Garlic and coffee are things that hit certain parts of the palette. They suggest that the way things taste on the tongue is perhaps partially genetic — but didn’t we know that? Some segment of the population (to which I unfortunately belong) is unable to determine the finer distinctions between most of the spices we use in food, all of which are instead only interpreted by the brain as pain. That’s genetic. Why wouldn’t “bitterness tastes good” (like coffee) be one of those things?

Although really, coffee’s a poor example because it has such a heavy social meaning. Personalities can help drive people toward coffee, and we know that twin studies indicate similarities in personality. So, garlic is better. Yes, I will believe that genetics influence how people interpret the flavor of garlic.

But to make a leap from that to a more sophisticated claim about dietary types? Eh… I haven’t read the study, but it seems problematic to do, and I wonder how many of the factors which a social scientist would see as important to such a study were included.

And of course, as usual, the claim (which we are to take as something ruling out social influences) is probably only tested in one or two regions (say: England, or England, America, and France), so it doesn’t necessarily say anything definitive about cultural mediation of taste. (If I’m wrong about that, would be happy to hear it.)

I haven’t read the study itself, and I’m not an expert on these topics, so these are just ruminations. As reported, this study yields some interesting information. However, it seems to me that its findings are likely to be overblown. Anyone catch American television news coverage of it? Was it really annoying?

Via Kate Harding, whose post I first saw on Shakesville, but who also discusses this on her individual blog, Shapely Prose.

I read about this a couple days ago, but I found it so gut-wrenchingly horrifying that it’s taken me a few days to be able to think about it without feeling that place of pain in my mind that I have to slide away from, in order to protect myself.

*

In Gloucester, England, a man called the paramedics when his two hundred and forty-five pound wife began having trouble breathing. When the paramedics showed up, instead of moving her, they began making jokes about her weight.

“They [joked about] getting her out through the window, which I thought was rather disgusting,” the woman’s husband is reported as saying.

According to the BBC, the woman “had had a history of illness, including asthma and diabetes, and the steroid drugs she needed had caused her weight to balloon” to what we Americans would call two hundred and forty-five pounds. The paramedics spent two hours debating how to move her. From the BBC article:

They had tried putting her on an air mattress, but she had slipped off.

“If they’d picked her up, put her in a wheelchair, got her into an ambulance and got her to hospital, they might have stood a good chance of saving her. As it is, she passed away in the dining room.”

In her post, Kate Harding wonders “How does it take two hours to figure out how to move 245 lbs.? I guess it’s tough to stay on task when you’re busy telling knee-slappers about the fat chick. The dying fat chick.”

She concludes, “I don’t even know what to say.”

*

This incident reminds me of two things:

1) How fortunate I am to have been, despite my weight, insulated from the worst things people will do to others because they’re fat.

2) How much more it hurts to read about oppression when it is something that could directly affect your life, especially this kind of random, vicious action on the part of those who are supposed to help you. It’s so hard — for me, at least — to even think about the things that can’t be predicted or acted against, when there is no shield of anger on behalf of someone else. I am made more vulnerable by my own shame. My colonized mind whispers: perhaps you would deserve it.

*

I am locking comments to feminists, but what I really want to do is be locking comments to people who can respond to this post without trying to excuse the paramedics or blame the woman for her own death. I don’t want to hear justifications or diet advice or fat-shaming or “but you see, what really happened must have been…” conjecture.

[Bumped by Amp because I think this is a really good post, but it appeared over the weekend when we have fewer readers.]

On October 3 (oy, I take a long time to write posts), Shakespeare’s Sister wrote a post about an offensive ad for playtex, which uses the bodies of fat women and women of color to create an impression of being woman-friendly while in fact marketing what Melissa MacEwan calls “the new misogyny.”

Here, take a gander at the ad itself:

Here’s an excerpted transcript of the salient bit (taken from Melissa):

“What do I call them?”

“Boobs, breasts, knockers…”

“Are you asking me if I have a nickname for them?”

“It’s a guy thing to name parts of your body!”

“Betty and Jane.”

“Titties! Boobies!”

…

“I’ve been asked to shake the moneymakers on the subway a few times.”

“Back up for a second,” writes Melissa. “I’ve been asked to shake the moneymakers on the subway a few times?! Giggle giggle ha ha. And that’s exactly how smoothly and coolly the new misogyny can minimize the seriousness of sexual harassment.”

In this ad, Playtex is expecting fat women and women of color to be so awed by their inclusion that they don’t notice the misogyny inherent in the way that they are included. Melissa’s not falling for it. She writes:

Of course I want to see more images of fat women and women of color (and disabled women and dwarf women and birthmarked women and tattooed women and women of every shape, size, color, age, and circumstance). But I’ll be damned if I want their presence used as a diversionary tactic while my skull is pounded with messages like “Breasts are toys!” and “Sexual harassment is flattering!” by companies who then expect me to genuflect in desperate gratitude because this something is ostensibly better than the nothing of the status quo.

This reminds me of another item that recently showed up in the feminist blogosphere, a photograph of recording artist Beth Ditto posing naked for the cover of a magazine. The Feministe article on this photograph seemed relatively uncritical, although they noted some assinine questions that a reporter, trying to pit one woman against another, asked Beth Ditto about Kate Moss. Twisty of I Blame the Patriarchy, on the other hand, was more critical. She laughs at the idea that sexy pictures of fat women are transgressive.

1. Porn isn’t transgressive; it’s de rigueur. No one in Western culture has drawn a porn-free breath in decades. This means it’s the norm.

2. Pictures of naked women empower nobody but the men who pimp’em out and the voyeurs who consume’em. A woman may elect to reap the benefits of her capitulation to her oppressor, and she can even call it “empowerment” when she does it, but that doesn’t mean she’s not full of shit, and it certainly doesn’t mean that it’s doing any other women the least bit of good.

3. Dude Nation is already well aware that fat women exist. And I guaran-fucking-tee that they’ll continue to hate fat women just as much as they hate skinny ones, no matter which pop star shows up weighing how much on what magazine cover.

Girls, the dominant pornsick culture is crapping on you. Get hip to this: the ability to titillate men is not a high moral purpose. Being sexually manipulative is not a high moral purpose. Posing naked on the cover of NME isn’t empowering, its emposeuring.

I agree with both Twisty and Melissa on this. We as feminists should be deeply skeptical of a culture that offers absolution to fat women by granting them a shadow of the objectification which plagues skinny women.

Fat women and skinny women are played agaisnt each other abominably in this debate. It’s a hideous catch 22, which I realized several months ago when chatting with a gorgeous friend of mine who is routinely trailed by cars when she walks down the street, misogynists leaning out the window to hoot at her body and offer propositions. When she told me this, half my brain went, “Assholes.” The other half went, “That never happens to me and this is a sign of my failure and inferiority.”

Either way, women lose. We lose when we’re harrassed. We lose when we’re not harrassed. We’re objects of sex, or we’re objects of disgust. Either way, our sexuality is framed around the imagined desires of a “default” male. Allowing fat women to be sexually objectified is far from ideal — it is not a radical movement that will lead toward women’s equality.

But there’s another analysis I want to bring into this, and that’s a fat rights analysis. As a fat woman, I can say that the damage done to my psyche through years of being told I’m revolting is really, really bad. In a fatphobic society, a society that’s more afraid of women’s fat than men’s, I, as a fat woman, suffer more than a thin woman who is otherwise situated like I am.

I share most of the disadvantages that thin women have in this society. Like thin women, I still need to fear for my safety late at night. I am still a potential target of hate and violence. Simultaneously, I am culturally denied the ability to view myself in one of the primary (and problematic, and limiting) roles of acceptable, western-constructed female sexuality and identity.

Twisty suggests that access to sexual objectification for fat women and women of color is no benefit at all, but only an admission into a club full of misogyny and problems. This is true, on one level, but I think that it’s important to look at the ways in which the axis of being fat affects women’s lives.

One thing that’s missing from Twisty’s analysis (or perhaps is implied in point 3, but not expanded on as much as I’d like) is that fat women are *already* objectified. We are objectified as objects of revulsion or disinterest. We are taught to view ourselves as repellant. Others are taught to view us this way, too.

Being treated like an object for collection, an object for consumption — something beautiful and desirable — sucks, because it involves being treated like an object. However, being treated like a treasured object is still better than being treated like an object to be thrown away.

Melissa’s position is closer to mine, and I think her emphasis is right on. We shouldn’t allow the fat woman’s or brown woman’s body to distract us from seeing how despicable a naturalization of sexual harrassment is. Still, if fat women and brown women growingly have access to being able to move out of the molds in which patriarchy has placed them, that will make our lives more liveable in some (limited) ways, even if that change is expressed in reprehensible and misogynist ways.

Ideally, everyone would be treated as fully human. However, while fat women are more oppressed than thin women, changes which alter our status will benefit us — even while they play into the misogyny that oppresses all women, fat and thin.

If Revenge of the Nerds is on TV, I often watch it. Not the whole thing, but a little section, here and there. It was a movie that I loved as a kid. But it was crap back then (despite some decent performances, including John Goodman as the mean coach), and it’s aged badly.

Revenge of the Nerds is vilely sexist; forget that none of the female nerds get much screen time or personality. The hero nerds are peeping toms who distribute nude photos of the cheerleaders to the general public without consent. One of the protagonists rapes a cheerleader by disguising himself as her boyfriend (the movie makes it clear that she never would have consented to kiss him, let alone fuck him, had she known his real identity).¹

The one black nerd isn’t depicted in a racist fashion; instead, they made him gay so he could be depicted in a homophobic fashion.² The one Asian nerd is nothing but a pile of racist anti-Asian cliches.

So, anyway. Vile movie. It got to me anyway, when I was a kid, because its message — that degrading treatment of nerds is wrong, does matter, and that bullies should be punished — was a message I wanted to hear.

On to Hairspray. The new version, not the John Waters version. Fun movie, good music, good performances. Much better than Revenge of the Nerds.

I saw it with my sister and niece and nephew. I liked it. It’s message, which is that degrading treatment of fat people is wrong and does matter, and that racist anti-fat snobs should be punished — is one I approve of. Picky person that I am, I still had complaints. There were plenty of cruel anti-fat jokes for the audience to enjoy; virtually all of these jokes were aimed at a fat character played by John Travolta wearing a fat suit.³

And then there was the peculiar strategy employed in both movies. Both movies focused on a discriminated-against group — nerds in one case, fat people in another — whose complaints about discrimination are not usually seen as legitimate or important. So how did the screenwriters decide to make these causes seem legitimate? By having nerd rights and fat rights (respectively) piggyback onto black civil rights.

In Revenge of the Nerds, the nerds join a (previously) all-black national fraternity; the head of the fraternity organization becomes sympathetic to the nerds when he witnesses anti-nerd discrimination (the jocks drive pigs through the nerd’s house). The subtext is that Black people are our experts on discrimination, so if a Black character recognizes something as discrimination — even if the incident has nothing to do with race — the presumably mostly White audience should accept that it’s discrimination, too. (In the end, the nerds defeat John Goodman and the jocks because the nerds’ Scary Black Frat Friends come and physically protect the nerds, intimidating the white jocks.)

In Hairspray, which is set in the 60s, the main character learns to fight for fat rights by joining the fight for civil rights for Blacks⁴. The idea is that the fight for racial equality is, inherently, a fight for the dignity of all people, including fat people. This is much more agreeable than how Revenge of the Nerds uses Black people, but I still find it interesting that both movies try to validate the idea that the rights of nerds/fat people matter by using the “see! Black characters agree!” strategy. It’s a symptom, I think, of how The Struggle For Black Civil Rights is the iconic struggle for rights in US culture, and so everything must be analogized to racial discrimination in order to be understood as discrimination at all, at least in pop culture.

It’s unfortunate, I think, both because it puts an unfair burden on Black history to have it be treated as the Iconic Form Of Civil Rights Struggles, and because it tends to make it hard to conceptualize the struggles of other oppressed groups where they don’t resemble the struggles of American Blacks.

1. The movie tries to make this okay by having the cheerleader fall in love with her rapist once he unmasks himself, because he was that great at sex. No, really, that’s what’s in the movie. I’m not making this up. (back)
2. It’s possible to do a flaming gay male character and still do the character intelligently and with respect in a comedy. But that ain’t what happened in Revenge of the Nerds. (back)
3. I call this strategy “The Absent Fatso“; having a fake fatso, who the audiences know isn’t really fat, lets the audience and producers enjoy cruel jokes without having to confront the cruelty. (back)
4. Which reminds me a bit of how many of the second-wave feminists learned to be activists in the 1960s civil rights movement before becoming feminists. (back)