[/caption]I was made aware of an upcoming date that has been established for quite a while, but never made it's way onto the pages of the obesiverse, until now. While there is plenty going on in this big busy world, and there is such a vast amount of anti-obesity propaganda being introduced simultaneously, I am curious as to how much press will be given to this upcoming significant event. Maybe they will be serious and address the very real and dangerous problem of eating disorders, or maybe they blow it off as an excuse to have an extra cupcake. Who knows what they will do? I hope they go positive instead of negative though, but when one exists in that negatively balanced reality, one must accept all possible outcomes and adapt.
When I wiki international no diet day, the very first quote from the current definition is "The International No Diet Day (INDD) is an annual celebration of body acceptance and body shape diversity. This day is also dedicated to raise awareness of the dangers in diets. This day is observed on May 6, and its symbol is a blue ribbon, similar to the red ribbon of the World AIDS Day."
When I see a statement like that, I begin to wonder why no effort has been made to establish a known list of wls victims that is inclusive of all patients instead of just those who subscribed to some forum. While searching for such a memorial I came upon this rather unpleasant quote from an article on cbs. "Study: 1 In 50 People Die Within A Month Of Surgery".
Whenever I think I'm railing a bit too hard against surgery, I like to read a story like this and know in my heart that "at least 2 people I know of agree with me". I saw this quote "A recent study by researchers at the University of Washington found that 1 in 50 people die within one month of having gastric bypass surgery, and that figure jumps nearly fivefold if the surgeon is inexperienced." and then realized how quick and easy it is to "check out" a doctor... wait... I'm being sarcastic and facetious! I see this quote and realize, wait, cbs has the answer! All you have to do is "Ask the surgeon doing the operation how many procedures have they done, what's their complication rate and what's their mortality rate. And ask what steps will be taken if a complication occurs." Wow, with a doctor about to score at least 10 grand, he would never lie would he? I guess google might end up being the only way to check out a doctor because I don't think that he's going to rattle off his own personal "mortality stat" and be totally honest.
I know we should not assume the worst about people, but the odds of getting a "good, compassionate, caring" doctor might not be as high as one would assume! I don't trust doctors ever since an oncologist killed my mother with a lethal dose of chemo, so I might be a tad biased when it comes to an elective, cosmetic surgery with such a high cost of life! I am also horribly reminded of the tragedy in the balance. So many people having surgery they do not want to really save their lives, and then these other people being told that the surgery will add years to their life, but with the possibility of killing you within a month.
When I use "edit, find" for "size" I finally come to that word in this quote "Raise awareness to weight discrimination, size bias and fatphobia." While I was initially concerned that size would not enter into this whole affair, I was comforted to see that it is brought up as the second "goal" of the international no diet day.
I write from the perspective of an individual who believes strongly that people have a right to exist at whatever size they happen to be with the same assumed respect and dignity that people get for being a certain age or race, or even having a "religiously unpopular sexual preference", or physical or mental disability! While little jokes here and there are harmless, the endless stream of anti-obesity media rushing at us all could potentially have very negative unintended consequences. Why should that matter? I don't know, I guess I don't like to see people suffer needlessly because some arbitrary physical difference became so unacceptable that those people must be made to feel that they must change or die trying.
Under the "history" section, I find this quote "The concept of INDD originated at 1992, when British Feminist Mary Evans Young decided to fight the diet industry and to raise awareness of the dangers in anorexia nervosa and other eating disorders."
I am wondering if the very first media coverage I see about this date is going to completely disregard the very existence of eating disorders and go right for the throat with "they want to be fat", and "fat is a choice" and all that jazz. In an earlier quote, I notice that a blue ribbon would be used to support this allegedly insignificant date, and then it's compared to the red ribbon of world aids day. I hope that this valid and just cause is recognized for potentially saving as many lives as the other ribbons that people wear for other causes. To assume that diet and surgery doesn't kill as many people as aids or cancer is a stretch in my opinion because care is given not to be too exact about those stats in my research.
Most people who write about international no diet day are going to concentrate on how people really can be healthy at different sizes, as long as they don't have some crazy, twisted surgery or go on fad diet after fad diet. I'm glad to see that some people are brave enough to point out that yo-yo dieting can be just as dangerous and pose as many problems as staying the size that an individual was just going to end up being.
Being a bit older myself, I can still remember how a "plump" looking woman would also be called "healthy", and now the media is working hard to turn that around. Thin and sickly are really being "brushed aside" and hidden away by the media because I guess that saying "USA is fatter than ever" is almost kind of bragging when compared to the footage of starving people "wherever". I personally think that hunger right here in the good old USA should be addressed whenever the dangers of obesity are brought up, but there is no money in feeding people!
When bringing up health at any size though, I have to say outright that I would completely bypass that entire argument altogether when trying to make people aware of the right to exist at any size. People choose to smoke, they know their fate. People choose to enjoy food the way that they personally see fit, and they know their fate. It isn't going to help anyone to keep pointing the finger saying "you gonna die" when the only available solutions that currently exist seem to all put the life of the individual at risk!
Negatively balanced reality. Personal note, I believe that the balance is "quickening" right now. When the President says "we're going to go ahead and drill off the coast" and within weeks there is a new "gulf tar pits" in the making, i recognize the balance is quickening!
Talk about getting off the subject! It's all about timing though, I haven't been very active in posting here so a few things come and go and I see them as relevant. Maybe it's hard to draw a line to this catastrophe except to point out the whole "best laid plans" phenomenon that surrounds obesity and our current climate of fixing something with no known safe, effective, and humane fix available. In a way, the gulf oil spill is exactly like obesity and weight loss surgery. There is plenty to be gained but potentially a lot to lose. The balance is in affect. You win some, you lose some. One simply cannot see all future potential as valid while there is such a strong desire to obtain a specific objective. At times, the individual will tend to ignore the negative potential and favor the positive, and in doing so, opening themselves up to facing unintended consequences that simply cannot be resolved.
I was searching for detailed stats, or the mere existence of a memorial to those who have passed because of wls, but I find an article from the international size acceptance association that talks about why there is a lack of responsibility on the weight loss surgery surgeons. It's called "denial"! There is a quote, "I notice in the WLS community there is so much denial that to me, it approaches schizophrenia at times." I can't agree more. Because of the word "deathfat", and the way that doctors can blame the fat even though a patient died while trying to fix the fat, or died from "something else" some time after surgery, there is always an easy cop out and zero accountability for the doctors that took the money and ran.
I really like this quote "So they have been doing Gastric bypasses (RNYs) regularly since 1980 and yet, no one can find the 15 and 20 year post ops. Excuses are made like it's just too difficult, people move too often etc. One clinic said they had done some 8000 RNYs since 1980. Even at a few hundred a year for that many years, there should be all kinds of folks with gastric bypasses walking around but they seemed to all have disappeared." Well, disappeared is one word, I like to use the phrase "shrink'em or kill'em" but that might be viewed as harsh. It's interesting how quickly the bariatric industry can produce success stories, but yet there is some great deal of difficulty in providing a simple number of "survivors" at the 10 year mark. I believe there is simply no interest in uncovering those numbers because those people simply don't matter once the check clears.
I really like the way this one site advertises the surgery, but the only uses of the word "death" are associated with obesity, not with complications that will most likely occur after surgery. To quote "Another recent study showed that obesity surgery was associated with an 89% reduction in death when compared with death rates in morbidly obese". Wow, that's comforting, except they completely neglect to point out how many of the weight loss surgery victims died instead of being around ten years later.
Back to the international size association article, there is another quote "Bariatric surgery still does not have sufficient data from enough patients with any procedure to say which operation is best. I am concerned about the goals of surgeons and patients and their level of interest in what really goes on inside the body after alterations of the anatomy. I am concerned about the focus on the superficial and results from the first year with a lack of concern about how life will be affected when patients are 10 and 20 years older." - Edward Mason (MD, PhD - inventor of the gastric bypass)" Wow, there you go. The guy that invented the thing sees that not every doctor really cares about what happens long after the check has cleared. This guy actually considers how some doctors will become used car salesmen who play up the positive and downplay the negative for the sake of making that quick cash off the people who can't be talked out of this crazy thing. In fact, this doctor seems to almost grasp how the general public doesn't care too much about what happens ten years after surgery because the patient "would be dead anyway" without surgery. There's that f*cking crystal ball again! When given a potentially lethal "solution" to obesity, I can't imagine why someone who would rather die than be fat would even hesitate to try this out for the hell of it. I mean, what have you got to lose when your convinced by society that you are faulty and incorrect the way you are? I can't understand then why Dr. Kevorkian gets his balls busted all the time for doing something that bariatric surgeons do every day and get away with. But I digress...
Another quote from that article was "It is an enlightening experience to mention the Billroth II (which is ESSENTIALLY what gastric bypasses ARE) to doctors not involved in selling WLS. A look of horror comes over their faces as they relate all the complications of this surgery. The longevity after a Billroth II is expected to be from 15 to 30 years. And although great lengths are gone to keep the RNY mortality stats from the public, I would suspect the longevity after the RNY is similar or less than the Billroth II." I don't mean to copy the whole article part by part, but the line about "great lengths are gone to keep the RNY mortality stats from the public" ring true as I attempt to find simple 30, 60, and 90 day mortality for any kind of weight loss surgery.
I don't think the studies are there because the medical industry isn't really interested in how many people drop as long as they got paid. I've said before how if a pill did this kind of damage it would have been pulled off the market decades ago, but since this negatively balanced reality seems to relish the shrink'em or kill'em philosophy, I am not really surprised any longer.
When I see a quote like this "Knowing that they will likely return to the hospital for repeat surgeries or that one piece of food, carelessly chewed could give them hours of excrutiating pain or even worse, knowing that osteoporosis is a probability with any mal absorptive surgery (and knowing how painful osteoporosis is), knowing that they might have to administer themselves B12 shots for the rest of their lives, knowing that an ulcer or adhesions can cause an excrutiating bowel obstruction at any time, necessitating emergency surgery. Knowing that their after surgery diet will be very restricted in both type of food and quantity and that in order to keep the weight off they need to exercise and knowing that following such a program consistantly long term would have the same effect without surgery (of making them leaner and fit). Knowing all of this begins to make many realize that the quality of life which they feel surgery will give them simply isn't there - it's a myth, an advertising ploy, a fantasy.", I realize why I would have apprehension as a "fat admirer" to get hooked up with someone who was carrying around this kind of health time bomb. I think I have to clarify, as an admirer, my own personal view of the surgery and it's affect on the soul instead of just on the body!
Women talk about wanting to hook up with a guy in good health, with a job, a car, and his own place. Oh, women who say "looks don't matter" often have to be reminded that they too have height requirements, dental requirements, and even hair requirements. Imagine then how a fat admirer feels when being approached by someone who had surgery, lost a lot of weight, but still insists on seeking out fat admirer partners because of an assumption that they will find "acceptance" because they are still "fat". Talk about a "rock and a hard place"! I mean, will the term "fat admirer" have to be adapted to include "natural non surgically altered fat admirer"? I think so! I know it's kind of harsh, but I also think that the term "bbw" should be adapted for the post-ops as "bpsw". Yes, I would replace the "beautiful" in big beautiful women with "post surgical". My reasoning? If true beauty comes from within, and someone hates themselves so much they would risk their lives to change it, then I have to assume that there is no more inner beauty left to salvage.
I said earlier in this post that the health issue and health at any size is going to be constantly disputed, so why not abandon that argument in favor of the right to exist at any size instead of fighting a medical and diet industry that can take a big dump on any real evidence that doesn't encourage fat self hatred? More people than ever are ready to visit the good doctor for the first surgery in what could be many until eventual death. Yes, some people have success, but this stuff is so very serious, I can't help but have some compassion for all those people who didn't make it because nobody, including the doctors, want to address those numbers. They love to use %0.2, but the more I research, the more obvious of a lie that statistic becomes.
One of the closing quotes in the international size acceptance association article is this "I have observed that my strongest argument against surgery is providing the ton of research which observed that there is no direct connection between obesity and morbidity, a result which came up in the 20,000 men of the Cooper Institute studies as well as the Met life insurance studies (the Met life had to draw up the charts using a mathematical formula since the results of their morbidity studies were all over the range. For example at age 40, the woman least likely to die at height 5'4" weighed 194 lbs!)." I guess it would be in the bariatric industry's best interests not to publicize the actual real life stats because that would ruin the "your gonna die anyway" sales pitch for the surgery. I just love that crystal ball, why can't they give you lottery numbers while they are telling you exactly when you will be visited by the grim f*cking reaper?
I keep looking through my search results on google for "weight loss surgery death memorial" but because so many freaking hospitals have the word memorial in their name, all I get is ads for surgery. This ad for one bariatric center uses the word "death" again to describe the risks of being obese, but of course there is no mention of mortality on the "ad page", and if you read that ad, you would think there is virtually no risk to the patient at all, of course. I even find a "frequently asked questions" page, and obviously nobody is asking "can i die?"! What about "mortality rate for this hospital"? Oh well, that stuff isn't really important, what is important is to make your appointment with Dr. Kevorkian as quickly as possible before your fat ass gobbles up the world's food! Oh no!
I was endlessly searching for more real life stats at the 30, 60, and 90 day intervals (which is kind of upsetting to tell you the truth), and came across a new neurological word of the day! It's Wernicke's encephalopathy and not too long ago i brought up Peripheral neuropathy. Wow, I'm sure that surgeons who perform bariatric surgery have a lot of interest in neurology. Can you say not my department? I guess potential new patients would not understand those big words so it's best not to make it such a big deal right? The disturbing quote from that article was “The number of people getting this surgery has risen dramatically, and I was seeing a lot of these neurological problems emerging after surgery,” said Sonal Singh, lead author of the study. “What was surprising is that some of these cases occurred among people who were taking their vitamins.” I thought that the vitamin ads for people who have had surgery are kind of... full of it? When I read the line in that article "occurs most often in patients who have frequent vomiting after surgery" I wondered to myself "some patients have frequent vomiting after surgery?". Wow. So the "cure" to obesity is a surgery that makes them bulimic! Oh no!
While into my 3rd google page on the quest for weight loss surgery mortality numbers, I finally found a page that attempts to list memorials! There is hope! I think that this link is the most vitally important link within this entire post! It took 3 pages of google searching, and in time I'm sure I will find more "resources" several pages in. What disturbs me is the fact that so many of these people were in pro-wls support groups, and it took their very deaths to make people in those communities take notice. I even read in one memorial about how one woman was "caring and courageous - spoke plainly about her not good experience with Weight Loss Surgery" "at a time when most others were afraid to say anything negative". Wow. I am so glad to find that page chock full of weight loss surgery mortality because it may just validate what I have been saying with my rabid posts against the procedure. It seems that the pro-wls crowd slowly begins to change it's perspective as people drop dead of "other conditions" when this miracle cure surgery was supposed to prevent their early demise!
I got so very upset while just reading through the many memorial pages. One struck me as being really relevant because I am aware of how a supersized person in a hospital is really treated (or not treated). I've seen the avoidance, and I've also heard more recent stories about one supersized woman named Cindy who has videos all over the internet but I'm sure very few people realize how she came to her demise at the hands of "medical professionals". I really feel for this guy. I could totally relate to a statement he makes about how the mere mention of hiring an attorney will perk up that hospital staff in a jiffy! I, personally, would disregard any attempt to limit my time with my loved one to 4 hours a day, especially knowing how neglectful medical staff tend to be with a morbidly obese patient. I know a lot of medical professionals would be offended by that statement, but I have been in a hospital with a morbidly obese woman for 2 weeks so I do know exactly what the f*ck I'm talking about. They never tried to get rid of me when they realized that I would be on "ass duty" instead of them having to deal with it!
Ok, talk about denial! Take a look at this page for "Kim Haas". Wow, even after death the pro-wls people insist on putting those corpses on strings to dance for future wls victims, all the while claiming that their passing had nothing to do with wls. Even though wls was to extend their lives, even in death, being skinny for a little while was obviously worth paying the "ultimate price". Let me take the quote from the top of that page, "Administrator note: Kim was a wonderful person, and this page remains as a tribute to her. Her death was unrelated to her very successful weight loss surgery journey. Kim’s family requested that the details of her passing remain private. Suffice to say that weight loss doesn’t cure everything that ails a person. Kim, your humor and warmth and intelligence are greatly missed in our community. You were a pioneer and a tireless advocate for the DS." My favorite line in there? "tireless advocate for the DS". I have to claim that's my fav simply because dead doesn't equate to "tireless" apparently. I'm sure that Kim might not have such kind words about the surgery if she knew that she could have lived ten, twenty, who knows how many years beyond the age of 33 when she did in fact die.
Are there so few living testamonials for this stuff that they have to pull this dead woman out of her coffin to continue using her in a commercial for Duodenal Switch? Wow! Her death being under 3 years from her "very successful weight loss surgery journey" means that it must have been a pretty short journey! Double wow. Actually, the double wow comes in when in less than a dozen clicks of the "next patient" link, another dead person pops up. If the mortality of the surgery is "%0.2", then how the hell should I find two dead people within such a narrow range of "next" patients! Oh well. Out of fairness, I will include the memo on that page here as well "Site administrator’s note: We are saddened to report that our dear friend Mac passed away, due to a sudden and unexpected heart arrhythmia, a few days after his otherwise successful surgery. His patient page will remain here, not only as a tribute to Mac, but as a reminder of the seriousness of the decision to opt for weight loss surgery. In spite of the fact that the mortality rate following WLS is no worse than for other major surgeries, we must always remember that the risks must be considered along with the benefits as we research our options. Our deepest sympathies go out to all who loved Mac." I'm saddened too site admin, but I'm saddened by all the other people of the future who will die at the hands of a doctor who this admin works for! I know that there are numerous success stories on this site, but I also have to wonder how many of those patients may have passed but the admin failed to leave a note for!
I guess I should feel good about this site's up front honesty about how some people will die from this surgery, but the fact that it's supposed to extend one's life makes this whole affair kind of a paradox within a paradox! I'm sure any one of those "success" testimonial people would argue in favor of the surgery because it helped them. I also know for a fact that even those individuals are going to suffer horrible and disgusting side affects of the surgery that they will not be so quick to mention simultaneously! I just know that as an "admirer", I will always see this as a cosmetic procedure and one that is an indicator of other potential weaknesses in an individual's character. My only defense of that statement is in another study that I was made aware of by Spike TV's "manswers" series. It turns out that women who had breast implants had a higher rate of previous psychiatric hospitalizations. Even wiki has a mention of this statistic which I find very interesting. So women who want some part of their body "bigger" might have something to do with women who want their entire body to be "smaller". I'm not quite sure, but nobody has bothered to get beyond the known fact that "fat women hate their bodies" and that's how diet/medical make billions! Don't need no study for that 1! I've heard Chris Rock say "aint no money in the cure, it's in the treatment". Who knew that Chris already knows the bariatric game! It's a trip to see that "thin carnie" is still being used to sell something that didn't "completely" work for her!
Ok, start out talking about the international no diet day and this happens. I guess I'm just a bit uptight about the fact that anyone who has had one of these wonderful procedures is actually unable to participate in indd because they are surgically altered to a degree that simply doesn't allow the individual to "go off the diet" for even one single, solitary meal. After all, the surgery is intended to work like the electric dog collar so that an individual cannot eat enough to gain or even maintain weight. If it really does work right, an individual can maintain weight to the degree that they are thin but they don't lose their hair or die of malnutrition!
While continually searching for those stats I so desire, the holy grail of obesity surgery outcomes, I come across this blog that lets me know why I'm having such a hard time of it! Wow! When I read this line "According to obesity researcher, Dr. Ernsberger, Ph.D., of Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, Cleveland, Ohio, several clinical studies to examine the long-term consequences and look for improved life expectancies have been started but the results were never released. “I think it’s because it’s bad news.” I start to see why it's so hard for little old uneducated, non-medical me to get those numbers.
While I might personally think it would be a good idea to chart progress and closely monitor obesity surgery mortality, the medical industry obviously knows more than I do and they aren't too eager to jump in there to find out what I desperately want to know! I would assume that anyone seriously considering such a life altering decision would want to know too, but again I am put back into the position of having to realize the smooth sales job going on and the attitude of "get the money while the money is good". I would not think this was so diabolical, but it's made obvious by this statement on the blog "Last year it was a $7.8 billion dollar industry and enjoying exponential growth, increasing some 1100% since 1995." Wow! No wonder there might be a little tad bit of opposition to telling the truth and doing the research on people who have paid so much money and some of whom have paid with their very lives.
The blog I linked to previously also held this quote "After trying unsuccessfully for years to get countless articles published describing the lives of surgery survivors and the complications, risks and precautions; especially the special risks for women of childbearing age and growing children; it became apparent to me that mainstream media’s interests are not neutral." Wow. When the media (like cbs earlier) says "check out your doctor", they already know that this is an oxymoron and a paradox within a paradox!
If someone checks this stuff out just enough to discover that there is no desire by the medical industry to release long term mortality stats, that in itself should send up a red flag, unless we're going back to Dr.Kevorkian here! I shouldn't have a problem with that if that's the way things are now, but I would like to have the right to choose to smoke if I want to as well if that means saving the health care industry money because they never have to take care of me when I linger for years because of Alzheimer's disease. This all takes me back to a post where I say how ridiculous it is to blame obesity for high health care costs when alleged research says obese people die right after smokers!
Another quote from the junkfood science blog "The Mayo Clinic reported in 2000 that 20% to 25% of gastric bypass patients develop life-threatening complications, but the recent Lap-Band U.S. clinical trials done to earn FDA approval reported 89% of patients had at least one adverse event, one-third of them severe." Wow, I can't seem to find anything about that on any of the bariatric ad pages selling the surgery. According to their own "frequently asked questions" nobody seems to be worried about that stuff at all. A few blog posts ago I said that I believed that the %0.2 mortality stat was a lie. Now I know for sure. Not only is it a lie, but there is a reason why you cannot find any stats about people who have had the surgery 30, 60, or 90 days previous. There is a very good reason that you don't see mortality stats for the surgery 2, 5, and 10 years down the line. The truth is, a lot of them are freaking dead! It's wild, I know that any medical professional would point at me and say "hillbilly, uneducated, redneck, no medical school", but yet, I have probably done more research on this than the average patient, maybe more than some medical staff at bariatric institutions! I can say that there are at least 7.8 billion reasons that most bariatric institutions might be tempted to downplay all of that stuff!
Wow, I went over 5k on the word count, wanted to talk about international no diet day and went nuts on the surgery again. I will go back to talking about no diet day before closing this post, but let me link again to the most important article i've found as of yet about the truth behind weight loss surgery of all kinds. Maybe I'm just selfish and uptight because any "old flame" that appears from my past who has had the surgery will entice me to visit with them and I will end up being all grossed out because the person I remember and was so attracted to is kind of, well, gone.
Omg I'm so shallow! but i digress... :) Nothing like meeting up with a woman from high school only to find out that the first time you would see her "big" breasts was after she had them reduced. Dammit! What a let down! Don't do it ladies! They never look really "good" after a reduction! They are really just as "fake" as people call the "augmented" ones! I would argue they look more fake than the bigger ones, or maybe, the bigger ones can be acceptably "fake" because they're so damned big! lol! I was also being facetious when I said I was the shallow one because it's my opinion that vanity is the character exploit at work with the bariatric "trick".
I guess a good question to ask a bariatric surgeon would be "how many surgeries have you done?" followed by "how many of those people are alive right now?". If he doesn't know the answer to the second question, or uses a "dodge" like "i've lost contact with some", then you should run the hell up out of there! But... I argue that any bariatric surgeon would already have such a smooth response to that line of questioning that you would think you were talking to the person who invented the human digestive system. If you are over 60 BMI, I think you need to take a peek at how the %0.2 mortality rate somehow jumps up to an astounding %5! Again, these results are not long term, but showing how variable post-op mortality is just depending on size alone! One link in my suddenly favorite blog post about obesity has more info, but I'm not a "big spender" at this point to be able to afford the cost of even reading this freaking article! Thanks big med! :) With more research and writing on all of this, I am uncovering a very dark truth under the surface. I wonder at times if I should even write about all of this, but then I realize that I am so easy to discredit that nobody would ever take me very seriously. I like to ask these annoying questions though, and now I'm seeing that these are exactly the questions that big bariatric doesn't want to answer! When being told to "check out your doctor", why can't you see if this surgery is f*cking people up 30, 60, or 90 days down the line. Then 1 year, 5 years, and 10 years. Why isn't all that data readily available to me and any poor soul considering any type of weight loss surgery? Why? Freaking why?!? OMG the sarcastic part of my brain wants to throw my hands up and say "happy f*cking no diet day" now. geez... roflmao dammit this is serious! lolz Almost 6k word count now day-um! Hillbillies can type!
Wow, even UCLA has it going on! Good for them! Those cardboard cali cut-outs really do have hearts! :) I pick on Cali and especially L.A. because hollywood is about perfection or strapping on a fat suit. Things may be changing though. I read that page and what do you know? Some college kid wrote "diets don't work". At least someone is getting their educational money's worth! LOL
OMG junkfood science also covered international no diet day as well, so I must give them props because that surgery article (oh so obviously) blew my freaking mind! Can you believe that I would have "gone off" so easily about surgery before even finding the indd article at js? wowzie!
I actually found the ending comment at this blog to be touching! The comment was "I love that International No Diet Day exists but I beg of you, don't let May 7th become an insane bounce back trying to recover from one day's escape from body hatred." Amen sista!
Well, instead of trying to analyze "20,200,000 for international no diet day. (0.30 seconds)", I will just be thankful that I was let into yet another very important aspect of our little obesity equation...
The humanity equation is far far far from complete at this point because the silly humans don't even know there is one! bwahahahaha! Obesity man shudders with delight. Silly, stupid homo erectus (lol spell check suggests erect-us)! Just a few million years out of the oven and you think you know it all! I challenge you, weak, feeble minded sentient mouth breathers! Figure out the equation and obesity is solved by accident! Ok, who let him out of his cage? Obesity man. Geez. :>
There is a balance in affect. There is a reason for us to be here, and contrary to what any one person or group of people think, there is a possibility that they are all just as right as they are wrong, and visa versa. If one were to assume they are all right and can all exist and be right in a reality where there is an astounding but still finite set of possibilities, then one must also accept that everything we know is sprinkled with some degree of truth. Due to the nature of statistical probability, there is also a lot of b.s. going on behind the scenes that people either can't or don't want to really see.
We are all blinded by our desires. If one thinks that the biggest problem in their life is their size, then one might be moved to risk their life to change that one aspect of themselves. What is amazing is the persistence of a "digital self image" and a "hypothetical self image" simultaneously, and how we attempt to manipulate one or the other out of a desire to change from what's "wrong" to what's "right". If we all step back for just a moment and realize that size is not just an individual problem but an educational and agricultural problem, then one can begin to make positive changes that will not have negative unintended consequences.
That's saying a lot without saying anything I know, but this post is like the post that went on forever! OMG I never had to write a "thesis" but now I know what that must be like!
What I mean by agricultural is the fact that right now I can get a double cheeseburger for .99 + tax, and then go on over to a local grocery where I would be paying .99 for one shriveled up nasty looking green pepper! Something is seriously f*cking wrong there, and it's not the "cheapness" of the burger, but the outrageous price of the veggies! Dammit! OMG how I fear that they will want to raise the cost of the junk instead of working on lowering the cost of the good sh*t! Oh but no that would be bad. Horrible. We are so lucky in this country to have so much resources, but if we don't want to see "food riots" and stuff like that going down, we don't want to arbitrarily raise the cost of food for God's sake!
Yes, agricultural subsidies. Looking at the food pyramid vs the subsidies pyramid one can see part of the freaking problem right there! I'm not an economist but I think that every trip to the store pisses me off when I go by the most healthy foods and notice that they are virtually cost prohibitive for someone who doesn't happen to have money to burn. In fact, right now, I can't help but notice how people are choosing between food and mortgage, so I fear the possibilities if the cost of any type of food was raised to "starve down the fatties".
Dire unintended consequences... Dire. Obesity man would just love it! But. We do not want to please obesity man, he's got enough of a g.i. joe grip on our collective balls right now, obviously! I happen to know for a fact that obesity man really gets off on doing the search "29,100 for food pyramid and subsidies pyramid. (0.25 seconds)" and then doing "20,200,000 for international no diet day. (0.28 seconds)" :> Oh yeah lemmie see "96,700 for national association to advance fat acceptance. (0.37 seconds)" oh no he di-ent! Don't people read to know that demons feed on negative energy?!?!? :> Is obesity man a demon? OH I wasn't supposed to write that just think it! Oh, he is laughing now! "339 for obesiverse. (0.19 seconds)"
So, maybe international diet day has the ability to bring awareness to the sheer craziness that people are going through out of a need to fit in. Very few people actually want to be a spectacle, but we are all unique, and we are all special, if you believe that Mr. Rogers stuff... Maybe he would really appreciate the way at least one woman had a brilliant thought that meant something so relevant and significant that it just had to catch on. The concept born of sheer compassion, elegant caring and concern for the suffering of humanity. How in this day and age could any group of people be condemned and taken advantage of because of a perceived need to "fit in". Who says "too big". Who is going to determine if we have the right to exist? Who will make the choice for a friend, family member, or loved one who will have to get a surgery or take a pill before any concern is given to any real health problem that should be dealt with?
Maybe international no diet day is a way to give people that one peek at the truth, that one realization of what's really going on, that epiphany so an individual may thank themselves for the rest of their lives for taking all this little more f*cking seriously! 7.8 billion dollars. I thought I was going to prove something by comparing it to porn revenue, but then I found out that is f*cking gigantic, nevermind! :> How do they freaking come at those numbers anyway? Oh never mind, obviously it was important enough not to see what good old Enron, or Madoff were doing.
Maybe the money is just too good. I mean, it's a good racket, why would anyone want to rock the boat? Even I could stand to make a dollar or two if it was my ads in my blog that brought someone where they would get sliced and diced. I am about to research the filtering mechanism and get those dirty critters out of my ad system though! I can't stand the thought of that happening, and as I read on and do searches like "14,300 for total revenue from weight loss surgery and drugs. (0.23 seconds)" and I realize it would take hours of reading to get actual data that is double confirmed and legit! I start to realize from reading a few things that come up that I might not be too far off the mark when I attempt to compare revenue from all diets to revenue from porn. All of these types of expenses may also have some strange, wonderful connection to the stock market somehow, only the future predicting algorithm can give that kind of stuff out though! :) If I do another search "179,000 for long term mortality statistics of bariatric surgery. (0.33 seconds)"
The first result that comes up for that last search is the NEJM! Whoa, brainy! :) I don't want to list all the many various ways in which that study is flawed, but I will just quote the conclusion "Long-term total mortality after gastric bypass surgery was significantly reduced, particularly deaths from diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. However, the rate of death from causes other than disease was higher in the surgery group than in the control group." I was like "wtf". This still doesn't tell me how many people exactly died after having the freaking surgery! Damn! but... Steven King knows all about this part of the balance though! :) I mean, using driver's license data and kind of "stalking" people, they found that the rate of death from causes other than disease was higher in the surgery group". It still doesn't answer my freaking search question, but over time, eventually, people might just figure out why the numbers don't exist. There was a quote much earlier in this post that indicates even the doctor who came up with this thing said that maybe "they don't look good". Oh boy.
At least wiki does tell me that 30 days has a 14.5% for operations through open incisions, but that in and of itself contradicts the teeny tiny %0.2 everyone likes to say when selling it. Maybe international no diet day would be that much more magical if every one who had made the decision to do this thing to themselves would be given the magical ability to eat "normally" again once just for a day. It's like an edible christmas! holy sh*t! lol No, no joking matter here dammit! If people had the choice to do it all over again after they could experience feeling "normal" again, would they want to go back? Would they keep pushing the surgery on others? Would they beg for forgiveness for each loved one lost who was motivated by their personal success story (without the stories of dumping syndrome and all yuck).
If each surgeon was confronted on this day by each loved one that was lost during the surgery, and had to watch as the surgeon was forced to "maintain deniability" and not dare "acknowledge guilt for fear of having an impact on a possible settlement", and that was on you tube, would people keep getting in line to have the surgery?
Maybe international no diet day is a wake up call for all of those who happen to be thinking about this really crazy new diet or taking up smoking, or doing crack, or puking after eating, or getting cut open so that they may never again experience eating like a "normal" person that they hoped and prayed so hard to be before realizing that they were sold a big old bottle of snake oil gift wrapped in a nut sack. Or writing blogs that have horrible run on sentences! :) I hope that I was able to bring across the point clearly enough, the irony and tragedy of trying to "look normal" at the cost of never being able to "eat normal" again. What a deal. What a deal with the f*cking devil in fact!
