Finish Him —
Today I’m leaving work early to take the eight hour round trip to pick up my son for the weekend, so I will be unable to answer questions as diligently, or thoroughly, as yesterday. But rest assured I will respond over the weekend. Today’s post will be a mish-mash of updates, so bear with my scatterbrainness.
Yesterday’s whirlwind of activity spawned by the BBC story on our efforts to bring down the billboards in Georgia has brought an incredible diversity of opinions on the issue of weight and health to our comments, and I totally welcome that. I believe the only way to discover the truth is to unleash a cacophony of opinions, and gradually tease out the tone deaf arguments and baseless assumptions until we are left with a harmony of relative consensus.
What I have seen is that regardless of what you believe the reasons for obesity to be, the majority of people are in agreement that stigmatizing children is not the way to address the root causes. Earlier, I wrote about how in times like these, when the welfare of children is threatened by well-meaning ignorance, that I will take any ally I can in the fight. These unnatural allies may not be ideal, but when our mission is simple and our goal is singular, then it is time to set aside our differences, if temporarily, to achieve the desired outcome.
In this case, we are fighting to bring down the billboards in Georgia and to ensure that this “awareness” strategy will never be used against children again.
One way we are responding to the Strong4Life billboards is by raising money to erect a billboard of our own; one that celebrates the diversity of bodies and the joy of being fit and active. As Ragen says, it’s pretty difficult to hate yourself healthy.
On February 2, we launched our Big, Fat Moneybomb and raised over $12,000 in 24 hours for our billboard. Since then, we’ve raised a total of $15,500 on our main fundraising site, while we have raised an untold number of Solidarity Dollars through our PayPal account (since GoFundMe does not accept donations of less than $5).
On top of this, we still have the $5,000 More of Me to Love Match, which has two criteria: raise $5,000 (done!) and reach 1,000 donors.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, as of last night we are 56 donors away from our goal, and I know that we can finish our fundraiser today. So if you want to help us unlock an additional $5,000 in funding for our billboard campaign, please either donate a Solidarity Dollar (just one dollar, that’s all we ask), or if you wish to give more, there’s our main donation page. Either way, please help us make today the last day of our fundraising.
Now, onto to mish-mash… Read more…
Dear Funny Person —
You realize that all of the health newsletters you are subscribing for me require my confirmation, right? So, after I delete them without confirmation, I never see them again.
But I’m touched that you’re so concerned about me and my health. If you could see me right now, you’d notice a single tear rolling down my cheek.
Welcome BBC Readers!
Welcome to Fierce, Freethinking Fatties!
If you’re new here, then you probably read about us in this BBC news story. You’re also probably wondering why the hell we’re so proud of being fat.
Well, for one, we’re not proud of being fat. We’re proud of being kickass, awesome people who just happen to possess a few more fat cells than most. But what makes us awesome is not that collection of fat cells, but the people behind the fat cells who society neglects in the pursuit of “health.”
By the current, socially-accepted definitions of health, thin=healthy and fat=unhealthy.
We disagree. We believe that health lifestyles=health and unhealthy lifestyles=unhealthy, but even that is subject to the whims of genetics, the social determinants of health and just plain luck.
But lifestyle choices are more than just what we eat and how active we are. People have the choice of whether to smoke or not, drink or not, go tanning every day or not. All of these choices, along with diet and exercise habits, contribute to your overall health matrix. Focusing on any single risk factor is penny wise, pound foolish.
But we understand the desire to address obesity. The media is filled with stories of the ravages of obesity. So, you come here and you want to know how we respond to the health issues associated with obesity.
Fair enough.
Behind the scenes in the medical community there is a seismic shift taking place. Dieting has a well-documented history of failure rate, and the repeated attempts to lose that weight, followed by its inevitable regain, is known as weight cycling, the health risks of which broadly accepted (PDF).
Yet physicians continue to recommend weight loss as the “cure” for obesity despite no evidence that long-term weight loss is sustainable for the vast majority of people. Instead, physicians are recommending a modest weight loss of 5-10% of your starting weight. For a 5’7″, 265 pound guy like me with a BMI of 41.5 (aka morbidly obese), that shakes out to a weight loss of 13-26 pounds. At a weight of between 239 and 252, that gives me a BMI of between 37.4 and 39.5, on the cusp of morbid obesity.
I still look fat, but that little bit of weight loss has made a profoundly positive impact on my health. Why? Is it because I have five less pounds of fat cells on my body?
No.
If that weight loss occurred because I transitioned from an energy dense diet and sedentary lifestyle to a diversified, healthy diet and an active lifestyle, then this may effect my weight, but the loss of the weight itself has little to do with the actual health improvements. What matters are the lifestyle changes I have made, which may, or may not, result in a 5-10% weight loss or more or less.
By hyperfocusing on the importance of weight loss, we have done a disservice to the true goal of healthcare: making us healthy. If we follow the evidence — evidence like the decades of work behind Dr. Stephen Blair’s fitness research — we find that weight loss is not necessary to improve one’s health, but lifestyle changes are.
This approach to healthcare has a name: Health At Every Size® (HAES), and it is an evidence-based approach to healthcare that focuses on emphasizing lifestyle changes and deemphasizing one’s weight status.
“But if you don’t look at the scale, how do you know if it works?” This question stems from a weight-based metric of health. In this model, fat is the disease-causing agent and losing fat is the cure. But the propensity of research does not support this model.
In the world of research, the true disease-causing agent is insulin resistance (IR), or the body’s inability to process one’s blood sugar. If left unchecked, IR can ravage the body, triggering a whole host of metabolic disorders that can lead to impaired morbidity and mortality. IR is a greater indicator of risk for heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and, yes, obesity.
But not all obesity is caused by IR. We also live in a world where poverty and education, medication, chronic stress, lack of sleep and our newly emerging understanding of endocrine disruptors in the environment have all been implicated in rising obesity rates. And you know what else has been implicated? Weight cycling.
That’s right: dieting leads to weight cycling leads to long-term weight gain.
By taking the focus off of weight and putting it where it belongs — onto IR — HAES offers a reasonable alternative for people who are looking to get healthy and who aren’t interested in jumping back on the diet bandwagon.
HAES has three basic tenets.
- Eat a healthy and diverse diet, paying attention to your body’s natural cues of satiety and craving
- Move your body in a way that you enjoy and that is sustainable
- Love your body as it is
Now, before you dismiss me as a crackpot hocking a new diet fad, a similar approach to healthcare has been advocated by none other than Surgeon General of the United States, Regina Benjamin:
And the national media is beginning to take notice, including the National Geographic and MSNBC. And unlike the traditional weight-based focus on healthcare, HAES has a growing catalog of research that positive long-term health outcomes for its adherents, regardless of weight.
But you’re still skeptical. I completely understand, and I, and my fellow bloggers, are always open to questions, comments and criticism, so feel free to challenge us below.
One word of caution, though: we don’t call ourselves Fierce, Freethinking Fatties for nothing. Any abusive or disrespectful comments will be subject to the Asshole Rule. If five people tag you as an asshole, your comment will be deleted. If you have three comments deleted, you have earned yourself a permaban. So, by all means, ask questions, just don’t be a douchebag about it.
Finally, if you want to learn more about HAES, please visited the Association of Size Diversity and Health, a coalition of healthcare professionals who are committed to spreading the word about HAES. There’s even a great blog filled with excellent resources.
And finally, just to quell that nagging feeling that we must be selling something, there’s a book called “Health At Every Size” written by Dr. Linda Bacon (we know, ha ha, bacon), which reintroduced the concept of HAES and has an incredible amount of research and information on how you can incorporate HAES into your life.
Thank you for visiting us today, and if you have a moment, please consider donating to our billboard campaign to combat the effects that the Strong4Life campaign has had on the children of Georgia.
Thank you.
Peace,
Shannon Russell
Editor-in-Chief of Fierce, Freethinking Fatties.
The Exorcist —
The power of OAC compels you!
The power of Dan Savage compels you!
The power of NEDA compels you!
The power of Kaiser Permanente compels you!
And now… the power of the NIH compels you!
Read more…
Fly Swatter —
Yesterday, my stance against Strong4Life hit home in a bad way.
After I was banned from Strong4Life’s Facebook page for saying “Shame on you” (vulgar, I know), I began making comments from my personal Facebook page which is just for the people I know in real life. Part of me was concerned because every comment I made on Strong4Life would be broadcast to my family and friends, some of whom I knew would not exactly be sympathetic to my side.
The worst I feared was a confrontation at the next family gathering, where I would have to go full-on fat activist to get my point across. What I didn’t expect was for my sister-in-law to “like” Strong4Life’s comments and to begin commenting in support of Strong4Life.
Read more…
Half-Time Show —
So, I was just thinking… is it just me or does this photo of Bobby look like he’s trying to pose provocatively?
Read more…
Enough —
I know, I know, I said no fresh, new content until we reach 1,000 donors, but I’ve also been blogging on the issue every single day, Monday through Friday, since January 5 (I’ve missed two days due to illness), and I’m not stopping until the billboards come down. As a compromise between competing commitments, I’m not using a theme.
Do you think it’s fun for me to write about the same subject day after day after day after day, trying to think of new angles, or digging up new dirt, on an organization that I otherwise couldn’t give two shits about?
I only have so much creative energy on hand each day and this project has been the Hummer of psychic fuel consumption. I’m happy to spend it fighting against bigotry, ignorance and hatred, but I, for one, can’t wait until the billboards come down and we can all go back to whatever it was we were doing before all of this began. Read more…
Small, Unmarked Bills —
No theme because this will be the only post you will see on Fierce, Freethinking Fatties until we unlock the More of Me to Love Match.
We need 1,000 people to donate to unlock the MOMTL Match and until we reach that goal, we are holding our fresh, daily content hostage.
There’s one catch… the Go Fund Me site where we launched our Big, Fat Moneybomb will not accept less than $5, and we know that in this economy, that can make a major difference. So, Ragen has set up this PayPal donation site for people to contribute between $1 and $5, This is specifically for people who want to show their solidarity with Stand4Every Body, but don’t want to break the bank in doing so. That’s why we’re calling these donations Solidarity Dollars.
Every Solidarity Dollar brings us closer to our goal of 1,000 donors. We already have 72 Solidarity Dollar donors, bringing us to a total of 485 donors, including the moneybomb.
We are halfway to our goal and halfway to an additional $5,000 from More of Me to Love, all of which goes to our media campaign in Atlanta.
Please give any amount to our Solidarity Dollar campaign so that we can get back to the business of kicking some ass fatly.
And if you can afford more, please give generously to the main donation site, as we will continue raising money throughout Fatty February to build a robust response to Strong4Life and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.
Little Victories —
From Kaiser Permanent Thrive’s Facebook page.
Taking Hostages —
Alright people, listen up… you’re not getting any fresh content until you donate to our Big Fat Moneybomb, got it? We’re already halfway to our $10,000 goal (which means we’ve met half of the More of Me to Love Match) and I haven’t even finished my fucking oatmeal. Every dime above that $10k will go to an extended media campaign, whatever will fit our budget. So give what you can because in order to unlock the MOMTL Match we still need 1,000 donors.
Every penny counts, so head over to our donation page and keep pushing that total skyward. The children of Georgia are counting on us!
And once we unlock the MOMTL Match, we’ll release the fresh content.
I figured there was no harm in asking Strong4Life and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta to pitch in some as well.