Lara Frater's Blog, page 27

Bullied by everyone including the news

A recent study indicates that fat kids are bullied more. Having been teased in elemantary school, I know kids can be cruel. Children aren't old enough yet to comprehend that other people have feelings. This doesn't mean it's acceptable but at least it's understandable why kids do it.

But what isn't understandable is that the researches seemed shock by their results. I'm not. We are bombarded with messages everyday, obesity KILLS, OUR BIG PROBLEM, BEATING OBESITY or a THREAT.  One of the...

International No Diet Day! Woohoo!!

Here is a reprint of an IGIGI column. This one got the most comments (half of them nasty) and the most views!

 

May 6th International No Diet Day!  So Don't Diet!

 

Diet used to mean what you ate; now it means to lose weight. It goes under different names including: Changes in eating habits, lifestyle choices etc. Whatever you call it it's still dieting, and will have adverse reactions on your body.  If you are doing without, then you are dieting.    

 

10 Reasons why you shouldn't diet.

 

Glee says no to diets and you should too!

For those who don't watch Glee, there is a fat positive character named Mercedes (Played by the wonderful Amber Riley). A sassy (groan) young black lady who is self-confident and in my opinion has the best voice on the show.  My biggest problem with Glee is that the prime characters are conventionally attractive while the outcasts, the ones who are "different" are side characters.

This includes Mercedes. Week after week the focus goes mostly on the pretty and thin Rachel.  Finally in last...

Good and Bad Boobs

Ironically on boobquake day, I will have two articles of interest on the boobies.  Boobquake was started when blogger Jennifer McCreight heard an Iranian Cleric proclaim that scantily clad women (among other things) caused earthquakes. She organized a day encouraging women to wear scantily clad clothes to see if would cause earthquakes.

But FOX and ABC are not Iranian clerics. Both networks refused to show an ad featuring a plus size model in her bra and insisted on it being edited. I doubt...

Diet Math, HAES, and Banning the O Word for something just as stupid.

An article this week in Wall Street Journal questions the whole idea behind 3500 calories in a pound (pretty much the calories in, calories out theory of metabolism that naturally slender people often spout.)  This isn't much different from the Hollywood cookie cutter theory of body weight. This idea that everyone's body reacts the same despite genetics, environment, and diet history. If we are all the same when it comes to calories and the differences are merely cosmetic, then why did I...

Hungry

Hey, short post tonight of some prominent news stories.

 David Katz treats us as the victim, well at least fat kids.  But he's nice enough to say it isn't a question of willpower but that we lack the willpower to resist. (Yes, I'm confused as well.)  And even though he thinks us a victim, he refuses to accept that some people are just fat.

In the second article, Sherman Yeller does bring up the point that there will always be fat people. People like Benjamin Franklin were not super svelte...

Understanding being fat

I was seeing a shrink in my late twenties which was what I call my middle diet years. I was already armed with the facts: Genetics made you fat, diets didn't work, society's expectation of body image was unnaturally thin. I knew all that, but I still dieted. I figured maybe for once I could be the exception to the rule.  Losing weight was something I discussed with my shrink. And in one session, I told him thin people really don't understand what it's like to be fat. 

I still believe that...

When a movie goes good and a book goes bad.

I finally saw Precious last Saturday. Mo'Nique deserved her Oscar and Gabourey Sidibe deserved to win one, too (no offense to Sandra Bullock who I also like.)  In the movie (which takes place around 1987 and is based on a book I haven't read yet), Precious is a fat illiterate teen who is pregnant for the second time by her father.  She is a girl that most people would give up on. She gets kicked out of school (which has less to do with academic issues and more to do with her pregnancy) and...

Still human, last I checked.

Imagine a mother who has eating issues and disorders. If she were anorexic she might get sympathy and compassion but if she were fat and gaining weight, she would be told she was an unfit parent or wish she would die and stop using up everyone's health care.  This is exactly the reaction given to Donna Simpson when she revealed she wanted to break the world's record of being the fattest woman. 

I don't agree with anyone forcing themselves to gain or lose weight to please a partner or social...

Gabourey Sidibe still got an Academy award nomination, what do you have?

Radio talk show host Howard Stern made fun of Oscar Nominatee Gabourey Sidibe calling her the fattest black woman he had ever seen, and that she'll never make another movie. I could talk about Stern's objectification of women on his show, I could talk about his miscontruded views of fatness, I could pointed out he should "get a life" like Gabourey's mother recommended, but instead I will talk about how much he has in common with her.

Stern has done very well in radio but has failed to expand...