A bunch of stuff has caught my attention recently, so this is going to be a collection of bits and thoughts:
1. Every time I see a picture of Rush Limbaugh, the words “fat bastard” feature somewhere in my automatic interior discourse. I loathe Limbaugh and every hateful, hate-mongering, hate-swilling thing he stands for, but I loathe as well this evidence that I have thoroughly internalized the idea that fat is, in and of itself, hateful.
I never look at a picture of Santa Claus and think “fat darling.” And yet the culture is full of characters and people who are justly beloved and fat, though often comic…(my perpetual faves being the fairy godmothers Flora, Fauna and Merryweather from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty) Limbaugh is NEVER comic, in any sense of that word, even if he is the Godfather of Lies.
2. This from MSNBC:
Obesity is threatening the world’s future food security, according to a study published Monday that calculated the weight of the global population at 316 million tons.
Researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said increasing levels of fatness around the world could have the same impact on global resources as an extra half a billion people.
In a report published in the journal BMC Public Health [PDF file here], the researchers estimated that 17 million tons of the global body mass was due to people being overweight.
Despite only making up five per cent of the world’s population, the United States accounts for almost a third of the world’s weight due to obesity, the researchers found.
In contrast, Asia has 61 per cent of the world’s population but only 13 per cent of the world’s weight due to obesity.
I have no words adequate to the waste of human time and capital involved in this sort of math–though I will defend ferociously the right on folks to do any sort of research they want–as long as they’re focused on the truth and open about their motivations/motivators. I am not arguing that Americans don’t consume waaaaaaay more than we should on all sorts of levels, but this sort of specious semi-science only serves to perpetuate prejudice against people, which is already more than enough of a negative force in the world. And you cannot blame the despoilation of the rainforests, the oceans, the air on the hungers of fat people, no matter how much I personally love (I have quit eating it.) Chilean Sea Bass. Oil companies, corn-fed cow farts, species hunted into extinction, the rape of the rainforests by logging companies, the whaling industry. Gosh, there are a lot more useful villains to choose from, but my vote would be that we start with rampant capitalism, wanton corporatism, and lunatic short-term profit obsession.
3. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120626163801.htm
Evidence increases that calories are not all equal and that low-carb and glycemic-index-oriented eating are better for you. Interesting that they’re both pretty moderate modalities (low–not no-carb).
4. So I was in Michigan this past weekend, wallowing in the beauties of the Traverse City and Central Lake environs. Went for a gorgeous 5-6 mile hike in the woods (I love my Fila toe shoes into which my new custom insoles fit–I don’t remember the last time I hiked without foot pain). We came home and one friend immediately went for a run and the other for a brisk walk. Sigh, I thought to myself, here I was feeling all virtuous about the walk in the woods…
It was interesting to watch how much more both of them moved that I do. The one who runs also belly dances. The one who walks also works with weights. Both can swim farther than I can, which is the thing that really bothers me–I used to be able to swim and swim and swim. Not sure where this particular thread of thought is going yet–I am aware that my hiking was, in health terms, enough. But I am moved to wonder a bit whether they don’t both have a certain peace in their bodies precisely because they move them so much–because they have more kinetic relationships with their bones and muscles. I do know that they both managed the paddleboard better than I did, though I did get up on it and stay upright for about 5 minutes, which, given the knees, seemed pretty spiffy to me.
5. Anecdotal evidence suggests that fat-bullying is on the rise. And this time it has all sorts of government and cultural agencies yakking away in support of it. Yippee-skippee. What in the name of all that’s holy do we think is going to happen when we legitimize abuse like this? Will it take a rash of fat-suicides to make it stop? Because just about everybody seems to be on this bandwagon from the truth-averse Fox a-holes to the President’s otherwise intelligent wife. I’m more than a little scared.
6. http://ee.usatoday.com/SUBSCRIBERS/LandingPage/LandingPage.aspx?href=VVNBLzIwMTIvMDYvMjU.&pageno=MTU.&entity=QXIwMTUwMA..&view=ZW50aXR5
USA Today is not my go-to for responsible reporting, so I was a little shocked (happily shocked) when a friend sent me this article about how disordered body image continues to haunt/torture women well beyond their teens, and how much misery that skewed (screwed) sense of their bodies causes women up and down the age/weight ranges. Maybe there’s hope.
7. There’s a photo making the rounds on FB from “I Acknowledge that Beauty Exists” that features a store window. The words on the wall of the display say “Shed Your Weight Problem Here” and the rest of the display consists of a large pile of fashion magazines. NICE.
fatmatters 