Obesity Stigma

This link is far more interesting and well written than my post. Check it out!

http://www.rice.edu/sallyport/2003/summer/sallyport/obesitystigma.html

I've been thinking about the stigma that is attached to obesity a little too much lately. I was reading a study that was done in England. They showed people picture of mismatched couple, one fat and one thin and asked them their opinion of the fit person in the couple, based on the picture. They then showed another group pictures of the same people, but paired with somebody closer to their own size and strangely enough they same people where give a far more favorable rating...I know this is a painful subject for both the obese and for most of their spouses, but the fact is through out human society and down through the ages, with very few exceptions obesity is a stigmatized condition. Obesity was stigmatized in medieval Japan in part, at least, because it was viewed as the karmic consequence of a moral failing in a Buddhist context. The stigma in Europe was based on the Christian deadly sin of gluttony. Stigmatization of obesity is not new.

"Why did I get married"

I watched a television movie over the weekend entitled, "Why did I get married", which featured a fictional group of friends whose marriages all suffer from one challenge or another. I'm more into action and comedies, but thought I'd give it a try. I mention it here because the dynamic of one couple centered around her obesity/his infidelity. As the movie progressed, I found myself mystified and grouchy over how our society continues to perpetuate the obese martyr concept, which necessitates there be a villain(the fit spouse). As expected, the marriage failed, then the fat wife found herself a better, nicer, handsomer man, who loved her no matter what, so she just naturally dropped the pounds(yeah right), whilst her ex-husband was left to regret his bad choice. I've seen this dysfunctional theme repeated over and over again, both in fictional characters, and here on this forum. The fact is, if you love your spouse and want your marriage to succeed, you will keep it and yourself healthy. And, as a woman, I must say loud and clear, the human form is not appealing when distorted by obesity, and if you can't push your caboose up the hill, how the hell can you expect to sexually engage your spouse? Everything is compromised. You can't live a full, happy life unless/until you reclaim your health. You can't effectively contribute toward a wholesome marriage until you yourself are balanced.

Posted by Ann on the My Fat Spouse Forum

This might make you yawn, but...

I'd love to get your opinions on this exciting debate among anthropologists, it came from here:

http://www.chss.iup.edu/sociology/Faculty/Sanderson%20Articles/Harris-Meet-Darwin.htm

Why we eat too much, feast, and get fat. Obesity, sometimes of morbid proportions, has become a major social problem in the contemporary United States, with a very large segment of the population now overweight. And the problem is growing continuously. It is hard to ignore the fact that this obesity is largely the result of overeating on the part of Americans, along with the more sedentary lifestyle imposed by modern work habits. Harris points out that humans not only have an innate tendency to eat, but to overeat; we have been built this way by natural selection because such traits were highly adaptive in the environments that humans lived in throughout 99 percent of their existence. In these environments, during which of course people subsisted entirely by hunting and gathering, there were always periods of time during which people went hungry for weeks or months. They ate, but they did not get enough to eat to provide proper nourishment or maintain their body weights. When these periods ended, people often stuffed themselves and held elaborate feasts, and as a result they put on weight and stored fat that could help them through the periods of scarcity that the would invariably encounter again. These periods of scarcity helped to insure that people would not get fat.

But today we live at a level of affluence unimaginable in the past. We love to eat, and to overeat, but the consequences today are different. There is so much food available all of the time that people now do get fat – many of them at least, and many of those to an extremely unhealthy extent. This, at least, is Harris’s explanation, and it seems to me eminently sensible. However, there is one point with which I would take issue. Harris correctly says that contemporary overeating “is not a character defect, a longing to return to the womb, a substitute for sex, or a compensation for poverty. Rather, it is a hereditary defect in the design of the human body, a weakness that natural selection was unable to get rid of. However, not everyone overeats and not everyone gets fat. Many people do neither. Harris correctly points out that it tends to be the poor who are most overweight and the rich who are slimmest, pointing out that the poor are less educated and thus have much less knowledge of good nutrition and diet. This is right as far as it goes, but it seems to stop short. It is true that overeating is not a defect of character, but it would seem to have a lot to do with self-discipline. Not to overeat when food is delicious and highly abundant requires a lot of self-discipline, and this trait is not randomly distributed throughout society. The upper-middle-class and the wealthy seem to have it to a much greater extent than the rest of society. Harris seems too quick to let individuals off the hook for their problems, too quick to cling to an ideology of victimization that is so common in today’s society. After all, he does say, “Too long have the victims of obesity been blamed for their affliction”. Harris seems to need somewhat more of a psychological perspective here. Individuals differ in a variety of traits, and the ability to exercise self-discipline is certainly one of these.

What I loved about this is the anthropologist/sociologist arrives at such a comonsensical place. Yes there are cultural factors at work. Yes our bodies have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to process food into fat in an amazingly efficient way, but how much obesity is a lack of self discipline? Is self discipline genetic? Is there a self discipline gene? The fact is so many of the crippling and horrible diseases that are still visited upon the American population are down to lifestyle, not genetics. Obesity, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc. I remember somebody telling me once
discipline is freedom. I think I was about fifteen at the time and hated them for it, but over the past fifteen years or so I can see how right they were. Having the self discipline to study got me through school. The discipline I applied to my job got me a career. The discipline I applied to my finances gives me the freedom to own my home and car and the discipline I apply to what goes in my mouth and what I do at the gym gives me freedom from obesity. I know this isn't always true every time, but not all of us can rely on luck to get by. Yes you can have an incredible amount of self discipline and still get fat, get poor, get a heart attack, etc., but a great deal of power in life comes from controlling what you can control. The alternative is to hope you get lucky.

How are you going to lose the Holiday 10?

This may be a little late, but keep it in mind for next year!

Ever wonder how it's possible for so many Americans to put on a fast ten pounds during the course of the holiday season? We all see it happen to ourselves or others we know year after year, and it culminates in the same results: people are left dumbfounded wondering how they did this much damage in such record time. First, let's define the term "holiday season." For most of us, the holiday season is the 6-week period starting with Thanksgiving and ending on January 2nd. That's when we all go back to work and tell all our friends that the crash diet starts now. One of the questions I've recieved countless times from clients is "How did this happen?" Let's take a few minutes to discuss the hows and whys in hopes of preventing the Holiday 10 from happening to you. The 4-Day Rule

After reviewing hundreds of client's food journals, the results are overwhelming: every day of this 6-week period is being mistaken for the actual holiday. The hard and fast rule I live by for this time period is that, in theory, there are really only four days in which you should indulge in holiday goodies. These are Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year's Eve. I choose these days specifically because they will most likely be the days you either host or attend parties. What most Americans (and most of my clients) do, whether it's subconsciously or consciously, is treat every single day of this 6-week period as one gigantic binge session where no food is off limits. Even worse, the idea of portion control has been thrown out the window. This catastrophic chain of events causes additional fat to pile on faster than Victoria Beckham's last dose of lip collagen. And this is certainly easy to do if you don't pay attention.

Skinny On Tinsel Town

It's every American woman's nemesis. It gets shoved down millions of throats like a bitter pill each day. Some women handle it well; others choke on it before finally getting it down. Then there are many others who spit it out as if it were rat poison. In all cases, it appears that no one is truly 100% fine with it. So what is this entity - this beast - causing all this turmoil and aggravation in most American women? Why, it's your friendly neighborhood female celebrity, of course! But we're not just talking about any ol' female celebrity here. We're talking about the ultra-thin. It's every American woman's nemesis. It gets shoved down millions of throats like a bitter pill each day. Some women handle it well; others choke on it before finally getting it down.

Carlin's Fat Rant Removed!

I am not being an alarmist here but You Tube has removed George's Fat Rant. All other Carlin videos are there. His anti American and anti God videos remain with all their vulgarity but for some reason his anti fat comments and routine are gone.

As you know I am anti censorship but we are in an information war here. We need to go on the attack. We need to shut down and or hinder people in the FA movement. We need to give those bastards constipation. WE ARE THE MINORITY! We are becoming oppressed and censored. It is happening incrementally and more and more political correctness is invading our already decadent and dishonest culture.

I really really like My Fat Spouse but it only speaks to one issue that can be easily solved simply by dumping the spouse who refuses to not be fat. I really feel for the children in these households. They didn't ask to be born to selfish and greedy parents whose food lust trumps their parental responsibility. They have no voice and they have no choice. My grand childrens' grand parents on their mother's side are eating themselves to death. They both suffer the comorbidities associated with obesity. I don't want my grand kids exposed to that. I don't want them riding in a car with a driver who has one foot in the grave. I don't want them seeing the behaviors of cardiac cripples. I don't want them attending their funerals when they are still little kids.

Maybe MFS should think about expanding its mission... but maybe not. I used to attend Alanon meetings. One groups was an adult children's group. When that groups disbanded (most were out of town college kids) I went to a mixed group where most of the people were spouses. They drove me nuts! You were not supposed to give advice and we were told that we were as sick as the drunk. That was a load of crap. One evening I could not take the whining and I told this whining woman that the odds of her abusive drunk of a husband of reforming were slim and none and that she had better get while the gettin is good. It just pissed me off that people who were being abused by a brutal drunk were told that part of it was somehow their fault. This entire blame the victim mentality needs to stop. That abused woman did not choose to be abused and her behavior due to the crap society had filled her head with became so segregated from her rational emotions that she some how came to believe that her stinking cowardly drunk of a husband was drinking and beating her because some BS blue book told her that she had some how enabled him to do it. Her rational behavior that would be consistent with her rational emotions would be to douse her abusive husband in gasoline while he sleeps and roast him to death providing she were afraid to leave him.

Perhaps there should be support groups for spouses who are married to a fatling. Fattanon? Hmm sounds pretty good. We need to make the rules. We need to create the popular notions. We need to boldly tell the unpopular truth. As you know I do all that and I meet with resistance for those truth and for my personal style.

If you are married to a fatling then chances are you were deceived and now you feel stuck, betrayed and gypped. Those are rational feelings and you need not apologize for them but on the other hand fatlings DO need to apologize for their size and for the size of their gluttony. While you are married to a fatling you are indeed a victim. When you leave or if that fatling reforms then you can consider yourself a survivor.

They censored a voice of reason like George Carlin. Don't let them censor you.

C.G. Brady posted this on the My Fat Spouse Social Network

Women and Porn

This is from one of Mary45's posts from the "Finding a Sex Buddy" thread on the My Fat Spouse forum


I have a hard time pinpointing exactly why, but I'm sometimes very irritated with womens' abhorrence for porn while I agree that probably most things about how the industry works is very wrong, but I don't think that porn in itself is necessarily a bad thing. I'm also convinced that more or less all men consume it to some extent, and very few are addicted to it. Some women also enjoy porn, but I'm not one of them, I'm not "visual" in that respect.

What iffs me is first and foremost the way women discuss the females who make a living that way. It's true that many aren't treated well, are too young and not paid well enough and so on. However, women who get all worked up over the "exploitation" of the sex-workers have no problems with buying clothes, furniture, fabrics etc that are produced by veritable (child)slave labor. Regarding sweat shops, child labor and so on, no-one is suggesting that we should stop buying clothes and furniture altogether, but rather that we need more consumer awareness and these industries must take responsibility for where the goods is coming from and how and by whom it's made.

What I'm saying is that imo rather than condemning porn as a whole we need something along the lines of a "fair trade" system/label on porn. The industry should not be run by people on the fringes of criminal organisations that operate in human trafficking, there should be a minimum age (25?), the working conditions must be properly regulated and that sort of thing. Porn that feeds violence, rape, abuse of minors etc should not be tolerated either.

What I can't agree with is the view that all female sex-workers are victims, and either mentally disturbed and ill or forced/lured into the industry. Certainly, the way the industry is operated in large parts of the world today too many women are indeed victims, but there are also many who do it of their own free will and do not need to be "saved from themselves". If a grown up woman choses this line of work, then I don't see why society should object. And incidentally, I don't see anyone being worried about the fate of the male sex-workers. All in all it looks to me like our strong reaction against porn is based on a very Victorian idea about women: A woman who is sexually promiscuous is either mentally ill or a victim, and having sex with several men or her naked body seen by a multitude of men, is unnatural and will inevitably lead to her destruction.

Incidentally, a young female feminist researcher in my neck of the woods recently conducted a study on the local sex workers (mainly prostitution). Her conclusion was that, contrary to popular belief, for the women it can be a job just like any other, the majority of them are not victims of child-abuse or rape, nor drug addicts, and are able to move on with their lives without having suffered any apparent damage.

If not finding fat attractive is due too.....by A101 a member of the MFS Forum

 Heres another thought that crossed my mind. Many fat militants say that the reason fat isn't considered attractive to many is due to 'media brainwashing'. 

But if finding people with huge amounts of fat unattractive is because of the media, then what about people with huge muscles? 

People with huge muscles are also found generally unattractive. The freakish, huge jacked up bodybuilders have a look that many don't at all find sexually appealing. 

We havn't been told not to like big muscles. The media hasn't told us to hate big, freak like muscles or find them unattractive. We look at them and find them unattrative because its not really what a human is supposed to look like. 
Just like huge overweight people, it is found unattractive because its OUT OF SHAPE, meaning out of the shape humans are supposed to be in. 

Its obvious that most people are going to find INSHAPE people more attractive because its the shape people are meant to be in, thats why its caled in shape. 

Too much muscle isn't 'inshape' so to speak, inshape is good muscle, good body fat, capable of anerobic and aerobic activity. 
Hughley muscular people are more 'mass monsters' then 'inshape'. 

Too much fat is 'out of shape', therefore of course its going to be found less attractive, thats not media brainwashing, thats finding people who are in the shape humans are meant to be in, more attractive then the people who are out of the shape people are meant to be in. Hows that difficult to understand? 

And also inshape has been found attractive throughout time. Different sizes from larger frames to wasp waists have come and gone, but inshape has always been there and always been found attractive. 

So if not finding fat attractive due to 'hollywood', then why do we also not find big muscles attractive? 

Its because both are not what humans are supposed to look like, neither hugley fat, or hugly and overly muscular, so if you do things that make yourself look that way, then fine, but you can't complain that people then only want to 'be friends' when they dont' feel sexual attraction towards you. 

And you can't complain if you dont look after sexual attraction then find your sex life dwindling. Its how it works. 

The fat militants love to say how fat is beautiful, but if they really believe in size acceptance, that also means tey have to be fighting for the jacked up bodybuilders with every vein sticking out of them, as they are also 'people of size'. And i have never met anyone in real life, or seen anyone on the internet (including those in that fat movement) deny that they find huge freakish vein covered muscles revolting..........well thats hate speech right? 

Therefore the fat militanst also have to go around saying 'Huge muscles with veins sticking out that look completley freakish are beautiful, you are brainwashed if you don't find them attractive' 

Cos i bet they don't, i bet they don't like the hugley muscular, veiny, jacked up like they've been inflated look either (though i've already won that bet seeing as enough of them have said they hate it on their boards, plus saying they want acceptance of sizes then calling thinner people 'matchsticks/aneorexic/beanpoles etc, yet they aren't talking about actual aneroexics but people who are inshape/thinner/not 200+lbs, i'm not even sure some of the militants have seen an anorexic person when they look at a well muscled athletic person then call them anorexic)

Telling Your Spouse (The Soft Way)

By Brothercrash, a member of the former My Fat Spouse forum.

I think that as time has evolved in my situation, I’ve learned some lessons that I’d like others to gain the benefit from. Hence, I am writing this guide to bringing it up with your loved one as a FIRST TIME APPROACH. I’ll also include my list of WHAT NOT TO DO and tenets of support. Yes, you are going to have to play a real role and work at this to make it work. But your relationship is worth it, isn’t it?

Some clarification before we begin on why I think I can help you. Let me tell you why I am uniquely qualified to speak on the matter before you read the whole article. Also, while I am not a certified counselor, therapist or psychologist;

I believe that the recommendations that I’m going to suggest are reasonable and in fact productive. You may wish to consult other posts to determine the correct course of action for your personal situation. My recommendations come from roughly a decade of helping people at varying stages of fitness, my own struggle with injury and weight gain, and helping loved ones drop weight and get healthier. I’m in the trenches. I’ve fought this battle several times already and come out successful in most cases.

I work in pharmaceutical sciences in the area of endocrine disorders, although I also work in other treatment areas as well. My background in solid science and my chosen career are directly related to healthcare. And while I am NOT a doctor, I work collaboratively with the medical community on these issues everyday. My position requires that I continue to keep abreast of the latest developments, studies and theories.

I do not have a website, I don’t charge for the personal training I continue to do today, nor do I write novels or books for a living. Everything I do, is pro-bono when it comes to helping other individuals. I’m a fitness professional and pharmaceutical researcher, I am not a journalist with a few cherry picked articles under my belt. Nor am I someone who obtains their information from fitness magazines promising 6 pack abs in 6 weeks.

At the end of the day, remember this… “YOU are the one who must live with the results of your efforts… and only YOU can judge the situation accurately for yourself.”

Take my advice at your own personal discretion.

First Time Advice:

Maybe they have started putting on weight. Maybe they were getting fit when you first started the relationship, and you thought that they’d continue. Perhaps they have asked you “Does this make my butt look big?” or “Do you still love me?”. Maybe they are morbidly obese right now and you have never brought it up. The following suggestions and points to consider may be able to guide you to successful first time intervention.

1) Independently take stock of the situation.
How long has this been going on? What has changed? Is this a slow creep or is it sudden? What is going on in your life and the life of your partner?

Why ask all of these things? Because, simply stating there is a problem does nothing for you. Ever been at work and heard those whiners and complainers go on and on about how unfair or unrealistic something is? But they don’t ever sit down and think about solutions or what is contributing to the problem? Irritating isn’t it?

Understanding contributing factors DOES NOT mean accepting excuses. It means that you must understand the situation to correct it.

Slow slide vs. Fast Slide:

If it’s a slow slide you’re in luck and is usually easily corrected. The average person can gain 14-15lbs over the course of a year by simply taking in 140 extra calories a day. That’s a single candy bar, a can of soda, a pack of cookies or a snack pack of Doritos chips a day.

Welcome Back to My Fat Spouse

 

 

 

 

This blog and the new My Fat Spouse website at http://myfatspouse.org will hopefully serve as meeting places for all the old regulars and anybody else who found refuge and resources at the old myfatspouse.com. I would also encourage anybody who is struggling with ongoing issues in the weight, sex and marriage department of their lives to get involved, post your thoughts, hopes, fears, frustrations and day dreams. The Nabble My Fat Spouse Forum is wide open. You don't need to register to post. Dealing with a loved one's obesity can become complicated and there isn't much out there in the way of support . We all realize this can be a difficult subject. It may help to take a load off your mind and type it into the forum. My Fat Spouse was a great place for me to go with my weight, sex and marriage issues and with some exceptions I took away more than one valuable piece of advice. The site has been down more than a month now and with the exception of a few faint whimpers of sadness and puzzlement on Chris's "Unfat Blog", there really hasn't been much in the way of lamentations for "My Fat Spouse". I think the site provided a much needed place for husbands and wives to vent, compare notes, trade stories, commiserate, etc. I don't think MFS reached it's full potential as a resource or as a forum, but it was well on the way. It will be a daunting task to put something even slightly comparable together and I wish somebody with far more web talent than me was taking this on. That being said, everything has to start somewhere and here we are! I'm looking for posters, collaborators and partners in crime. I'm open to any and all ideas. If Chris decides to climb back on line I will happily cease and desist any MFS activity he isn't cool with. In the mean time I hope to keep this thing going. The site was there for me and I want it to be there for others. Thanks for stopping by, spread the word and keep in touch!

-Tuesday

Don't Buy the 'Fat Gene' Myth by Michael Fumento

If there's one thing worse than the awesome American obesity epidemic, it's saying that nothing can be done about it. Sadly, this has become a cottage industry in our country. It ranges from books with titles like Your Fat Is not Your Fault, to Big Is Beautiful! magazine covers, to fat activist groups, to newspaper articles like the recent Post one, "Battle Your Biology? Fat Chance" (New York Post, July 11).
True, telling people what they need to hear as opposed to what they want to hear is not the route to fame, fortune and the best-seller list. But here goes:

Big is not beautiful; it cripples and kills. Studies have repeatedly found that overweight people (not huge; just overweight) suffer higher rates of heart disease, stroke, many types of cancer, arthritis and an incredible array of other diseases.

About 300,000 Americans die prematurely each year from being overweight. Only cigarette smoking causes more lifestyle-related deaths.

Obesity in the U.S. is epidemic in every sense of the word.

Last October, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that 55% of U.S. women and 63% of men are overweight or obese. The federal government's statistics are similar.

The study also found the obesity rate among adults jumped almost 70% just from 1991 to 1998.

This incredible growth of the national girth belies everyone's favorite excuse, genes. Gene pools don't change within a single generation.

Blaming genes for one's own obesity is also a red herring. Yes, a few such genes affecting metabolism have been found, but they count for almost nothing. One, for example, has been shown to reduce a person's calorie-burning by the equivalent of a butterscotch disk a day.

Why is the nation getting fatter? No surprise here. We're eating more and exerting less, whether in formal exercise or simple day-to-day activities.

Why are individuals getting fatter? See above.

Every one of the multitude of studies in which people's caloric intake and output are measured, as opposed to the studies that simply ask subjects what they eat and how much exercise they get, verifies just what mama told you. Eat too much, don't get enough exercise, and you balloon.

This is bad news if you're looking to scapegoat your metabolism, but good news if you like the idea of controlling your weight fate.

More good news is that another obesity myth is that our bodies, like ratchet-wrenches, readily put pack on the pounds but thereafter refuse jealously to let go of them. In reality, what goes up can come down.

The science of weight loss is still young, but already provides useful advice.

Most important, probably, is to lose the weight slowly. People who have packed on 30 pounds over 15 years and then try to lose it in 30 days are in all likelihood doomed to failure.

For most people, a combination of a moderate reduction in eating and a moderate increase in exercise is most effective.

Drastic swings in either direction provide quick results; however, drastic actions are not sustainable and eventually every pound creeps back on.

It appears that most successful slimmers make and stick to their own plans, without benefit of a commercial program or the latest best-selling diet book.

But the first step in dealing with any problem is recognizing that it IS a problem and can be helped.

Meanwhile, the worst food you can consume is the baloney produced by those who tell you to just eat, drink, and be merry, for nothing can be done.

Read Michael Fumento's additional work on obesity and on cancer.
Read an excerpt from Michael Fumento's book, The Fat of the Land and a review, "'Fat' Sheds Light on Weight Myths" (The Detroit News, December 31, 1997).

Michael Fumento is author of numerous books, including The Fat of the Land: Our Health Crisis and How Overweight Americans Can Help Themselves (Penguin, 1998).

The play with your kittens workout by A101

Hey everyone and welcome to the latest in hardcore workouts

Lets get down to buisness with the latest fitness regime:

The play with your kittens workout

You will need:

: Some kittens
: Some string
: A mini toy ball

Exercise 1: The string exercise for a real bicep blast

: Sit in a comfy chair (for those of you with extra will power you may slowly and with good form, turn the t.v on)
: Dangle the string above the kittens head
: Watch it jump up for the string
: Do for 10 reps for a real pump

Exercise 2: The ball chase

: Still in your comfy chair, roll a small toy ball across the floor
: Move yur eyes from left to right as you watch the kitten chase it
: Stand up using your quadriceps and walk the 3 feet to pick up the ball
: Walk the 3 feet back to your comfy chair
: Roll the ball again for 8 reps
: FEEL THE BURN

Exercise 3: The tummy stroke

: Sit in your comfy chair
: Pick up the kitten (if you have more then one kitten, pick up the lightest first to get a good warm up)
: Tickle the kittens tummy for 10 reps
: Check out the vascularity

Bonus exercise for the extra fit: Feeding time

Undo the can of kittie chunks
Keeping your back straight, deadlift the bowl onto the kitchen counter
Fill with kittie chunks
Deadlift the bowl back onto the floor (be careful as the bowl will now be heavier)

Congratulations, you have completed the 'Play with your kittens workout' WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

(Ok some can look at this and say 'SEEEE HATE SITE', but really its just that after seeing someone on one of those boards (as we spoke about in other posts) say 'I play with my kittens and still can't lose weight', and being deadly serious..........figure it out. The point i'm trying to make is that it seems with many FA blogs, no-one seems to have any idea what exercise actually is. Its as if the everyday things we do to keep ourselves busy have now changed in definition to become athletic feats. And not losing weight from doing something as basic as dusting seems to further prove in some of these bloggers minds that 'weight loss and getting in shape the healthy way is impossible or doesn't exist'.)