In trying to find an article about the stigma of obesity that is tranferred onto those who are merely associated with them, I came across a summary journal that involved the research I was interested in bringing to the obesiverse.
If one were to do a google search for "stigma and obesity" there are over 370,000 results, so I would have to say that the numbers indicate a serious social issue going on that is not being addressed in parallel with the public health crisis of obesity. I think it is a responsibility of those in power and in positions of authority to address obesity stigma in balance with the constant barrage of obesity numbers and statistics and the death hidden in the size of our waistlines. Even if someone is willing to subscribe to the most extreme "solutions", they will deal with at least some form of discrimination in the institution that they are paying to help them.
When people complain about this or that, they rarely give suggestions to improve the situation beyond "make a new law". My only wish is that when the anti-obesity initiative is really put into affect, it would address the need for compassion to those who are "afflicted" whenever there is talk like "something needs to be done". If I wasn't intimately attached to the size acceptance struggle I might just blow it all off as a way to avoid the real issues that people are really concerned with that just won't go away.
One quote from the article, “Unfortunately, the results from both of our studies revealed that a male job applicant was rated more negatively when seen with an overweight female than with a normal-weight female, and that just being in the mere proximity of an overweight woman was enough to trigger this stigmatization toward the male applicant,” seems to justify my argument that as an individual associated with an obese person, I run the risk of suffering this same social judgment and bias that the obese person experiences. This is no surprise to me as I have been in social situations with one or more larger than average females, and I have had to develop a sense of pride in knowing that I am receiving additional attention because my good taste is indulged without fear of public shame.
I am also compelled, it seems, to do other things which make my association with the obese permanent, in the tattoos which adorn my skin and in the photos that exist where I am in a very intimate situation with someone who is vastly larger than myself. It would seem as if I am a glutton for punishment, but I have always recognized that what makes me happy will be seen as a "no, no" by some. Sometimes, even those individuals are eventually educated or enlightened to the fact that their intolerance is not even fully understood by themselves.
I am moved to use a variation of the word "indulge" because it appears in yet another similar study, which I will get to later. When I do a search for obesity stigma at a site that publishes medical studies, I get 105 results. There has been a good deal of study on this matter, and I am surprised at the negligence in not addressing that as part of the problem. Omg this site even has research on why plus sized women complain about finding a good man.
On a more serious note, the people behind this study really had the right idea. My favorite line from that one is "A new model aimed at reducing avoidant behavior and increasing psychological flexibility, has shown to be relevant in the treatment of other chronic health problems and is worth examining for improving the lives of obese persons."
This means that people who are not constantly reminded of how "ugly" they are because of their affliction have a better chance of coping with and maybe even overcoming it. Duh! In the same way we don't persecute those with HIV because of the moral implications of "how it might have been contracted". We certainly don't blame someone who has cancer for working with asbestos, or eating a product containing an ingredient that was later found to be carcinogenic.
Because obesity is so quickly associated with over-eating, it is one of the few behaviors that carries with it a constant physical reminder to the individual and everyone else. This is particularly tragic in the cases where the metabolic system has been damaged and the individual really is in no control of what their body decides to do with what they eat however much or little. When I look up metabolic disease on that medical site I got 647324 results. Is it fair to blame every obese person for simply overeating when there are 10 major categories of inherited metabolic diseases?
I could not find any copy of the article I really wanted to bring up except for a copy I had saved and commented on a long time ago. I had to quote a part of that article here for a bit of commentary before closing this post.
The man with the big woman was rated 22 percent more negatively than the same fellow with the thin companion. When seen with the large woman, he was more likely to be described as miserable, self-indulgent, passive, shapeless, depressed, weak, insignificant and insecure.
"It shows that people project negative attitudes associated with obesity not only on the obese but all those who associate with them," Halford said.
The study also found that students who were themselves overweight were more likely than usual to rate the man harshly when pictured with the obese partner.
I know that sometimes the truth hurts, and it's going to be shocking to some plus sized women to realize that there are times when a guy doesn't want to admit to being attracted to a plus sized woman because of how a plus sized woman would view him upon finding out. I used to wonder why I would hear about this guy or that guy dating a bbw when he "doesn't consider himself a fat admirer", but yet the last 5 women this guy dated just happen to be fat.
When I was "enlightened" I figured that phenomenon out very quickly. A guy who admits his attraction to a big woman would probably be thought to have deviant sexual tendencies, so there has to be some kind of excuse if a guy indulges the desire to experience at least some aspect of what it's like to be with a big woman.
I also realize that more highly charismatic guys than myself can talk more women into things than I could ever imagine, and before I have sympathy for a big woman who was "used" by a charismatic and obviously insincere guy (jerk), I would have to consider how many less attractive but more sincere "nice guys" were shot down by that woman before she ended up in a situation where she could be humiliated or used by the guy who makes no secret that "this isn't really his thing". I also tend to realize as I read something like that article that a lot of it really is fiction and if just one female fell for that kind of treatment, it was what she was actually looking for, not a victim of.
That whole subject deserves it's own post, which will be coming I'm sure. I already thought of a name for the post, "dispelling the myth that fat chicks are easy". It's obvious that with so many people jumping to the conclusion that fat chicks are easy, said fat chicks will be defensive about this misconception, thereby making them much more "difficult" (as opposed to easy:). Ah, the balance! I probably have a serious bias as an individual who has never had intimacy come so "easily" when I would have been grateful and not "settling". I just don't know though, I've never "settled" with a skinny chick so it's my opinion that any guy with a big woman is with her because that's what he likes!
I paid particular attention to the word "self indulgent" in the stigma transfer research study because it implies that everyone who used that word would assume that this guy was partaking in some kind of forbidden fruit, something that everyone wants but should not actually follow through with. That's a very interesting aspect that I'm sure most people will overlook, but it's exactly the reason why this writer would become intrigued with size acceptance and the plight of the obese in the first place. Another way to put it is something that a plus sized woman told me several years ago. She said "big women are like mopeds, everybody wants to ride one but they don't want their friends to see them on it". I heard that quote from my friend several years before seeing it later in the article I linked to previously.
I know there are serious issues within size acceptance that I will get to, but the things I have found out by virtue of people being surveyed has been invaluable in helping me to figure out why I am the way I am, and why I care at all about any of this. I use the word enlightened quite a bit because I have not only had to be enlightened to what I really want, but also about what others really want as well.
I pulled out the part of that article that shows the balance and how powerful and real it is. We are in the "fat matrix" and setting your mind free involves seeing the truth about the way things are. I just had to quote that part of the article because it not only points out the obvious stigma that exists, but also the fact that the stigma is even stronger among those considered "obese" themselves! This is why I have such a radical view of the future and how fat people themselves would line up for whatever our authority figures say is the right thing to do because they say so for our own good. This is also how I have been forced to accept the way in which size discrimination exists and can be harsh even within the size acceptance movement itself (too big, too small, just right).
Sunday, February 21, 2010
gimmie drugs!
I was reading an article about 3 drugs being tested out, and I had been "on a roll" talking about diet pills recently, so I was moved to check out the next wave of potential future pharmaceutical failures. I have to admit, reading the article did make me feel like there is more focused effort to address the origins of obesity rather than trying to block fat absorption or some other body tricking patch.
Like always, appetite suppression is going to be the main theme. The approach to achieve that suppression is the reason for so many potential drugs to be used. This, in my opinion, is more evidence that all diet drugs are basically "experimental" long after they are released because one drug will be like a magic cure for some people, but unfortunately for others, the same drug may cause a reaction that ranges from mild, to severe, to possible death.
What I found very interesting was the possible inclusion of Bupropion being mixed with naltrexone to be sold under the name Contrave. Why is this interesting? If you read the wiki article about bupropion, it was once marketed as wellbutrin, which was pulled because at it's original 400mg dosage, it caused seizures! They lower the dose and sell it as zyban to quit smoking. What I find to be really strange is that when the dosage is given in relation to studies in obesity, that dosage was jacked right back up to 400mg, where it had been pulled as wellbutrin. Wow, the shrink'em or "shak'em" strategy is in affect. Even the article that talks about the new drug points out:
"The most common side effects included nausea, constipation and headache. The most severe side effects were one case of gall bladder infection and one person who had seizures. More than 3,000 people were included in the study, but around 40 percent of them dropped out of the trial."
So, because the dosage is now "time release" there is supposed to be less of a chance of seizures due to the higher absorption? One poor guy had seizures, and somewhere a research assistant was like "ah, was waiting for one of them to do that" because they knew that wellbutrin lowers seizure threshold and so does buproprion.
All of this information is right there in front of you to be found and thought seriously upon. Do you take the blue pill or the red pill? Do you want to die because you were too fat or do you want to die from whatever damage takes place to your brain during a freaking seizure. Anything to be thin right? This stuff hasn't even come out yet and obviously there are some issues going on that my non medical trained butt can figure out pretty quickly with the information age in affect.
I don't think I want to pick on all 3 of the drugs right now, except to say that we are in for a wave of drugs already approved for other uses that are being used in obesity strategies simply because those drugs were already researched under other conditions. What bothers me is in the way that the metobolic system of an obese individual may cause a vulnerability to some symptoms that may not have appeared in an otherwise "average size" group of research volunteers. If I was participating in a drug trial, I wonder what it would feel like if I was closer to a seizure than I have ever been in my life? I wonder how a lab tech would handle a medical emergency. I would hope that the research assistants who work with the obese would at least be prepared to physically handle someone who needed to be transported to a real medical facility!
One thing with all these drugs is for sure. If one does happen to work, you will be paying for it and taking it every day for the rest of your life, if it doesn't get pulled because it killed a few hundred people who were taking it for years.
I guess it could be worth losing "some weight" (permanently?) if I took a pill every day for the rest of my life. I wonder how much it would cost? Would it have those nasty side affects on me? What will it do to me, or any human, after taking it for over a decade?
Anti-depressants offer so much promise in the field of psychiatry, but unfortunately, they seem to be some of the most dangerous drugs around. I have to go back to the balance, and realize that you simply can't cheat nature. If your depressed, if your big, if your anything, your body is talking to you. I don't think that the body will be satisfied when it calls by feeding it a chemical or cutting it open to challenge millions of years of evolution and change stuff around.
To everything there is a root cause, and to take a shortcut is to miss out on what that cause is entirely. Pills can be great for some things, but when our culture has a corresponding pill for every "problem", there will be further problems because we, as a race, are taking a shortcut and refusing to acknowledge the root cause of so many things. Maybe obesity is just one of several indicators to let us know, as the beings that inhabit this planet, that we are further out of balance with nature than ever in our race's history or evolution.
I don't want to close this post without acknowledging the fact that at least one of the drugs had an original use involving addiction! This was kind of a shock to me, because in my research I have not found too many drugs that actually attempt to confront what one of the main roots to obesity is... Food addiction! I know that my view on that has been addressed slightly, and I will bring it up again here. The way any addiction is treated is by totally taking away the addictive substance. In the case of food addiction this is simply not an option.
I have been wondering how the issue of curing addiction without restricting the object of addiction would work. An opioid receptor antagonist is great for blocking the positive rush of ingesting an opioid, and a norepinephrine and dopamine reuptake inhibitor seem great for flooding the brain with extra dopamine to prevent compulsive behavior. The problem with food addiction is that food is necessary, so when the behavior of taking in too much food or grazing is comforting or relaxing, I am not sure that inhibiting dopamine reuptake is going to do the trick. Maybe when combined with the mental frame of mind of wanting to take a pill to control eating, it may actually cause just enough of a difference in the "eating rush" to cut down on binges.
The research shows that some people lost more weight than the "control group" who did not get the drug, so it does work for some people. I can never argue that kind of science, but I can express concern that taking another pill brings a realm of negative probabilities that are never discovered until a bunch of people have already gotten hurt by them. If "diet and excersize" is what this is all really about, why would there be 3 drugs at a time being introduced? If a drug company knows a certain dosage caused a drug to be pulled because of seizures, why would they continue to do the research with the same dosage when considering it for this new "diet cocktail" type drug? Why do I ask why when we know cash is king? :) Let me finally close then by saying if you want to take Contrave, go ahead, but I sincerely hope you are not one of the few who have seizures in the process. I know that this condition is rare, and those individuals may have been prone to seizures or already had a low threshold, but it's sad that the compulsion and/or desperation to change one's size is going to equate into a process of obese natural selection.
Like always, appetite suppression is going to be the main theme. The approach to achieve that suppression is the reason for so many potential drugs to be used. This, in my opinion, is more evidence that all diet drugs are basically "experimental" long after they are released because one drug will be like a magic cure for some people, but unfortunately for others, the same drug may cause a reaction that ranges from mild, to severe, to possible death.
What I found very interesting was the possible inclusion of Bupropion being mixed with naltrexone to be sold under the name Contrave. Why is this interesting? If you read the wiki article about bupropion, it was once marketed as wellbutrin, which was pulled because at it's original 400mg dosage, it caused seizures! They lower the dose and sell it as zyban to quit smoking. What I find to be really strange is that when the dosage is given in relation to studies in obesity, that dosage was jacked right back up to 400mg, where it had been pulled as wellbutrin. Wow, the shrink'em or "shak'em" strategy is in affect. Even the article that talks about the new drug points out:
"The most common side effects included nausea, constipation and headache. The most severe side effects were one case of gall bladder infection and one person who had seizures. More than 3,000 people were included in the study, but around 40 percent of them dropped out of the trial."
So, because the dosage is now "time release" there is supposed to be less of a chance of seizures due to the higher absorption? One poor guy had seizures, and somewhere a research assistant was like "ah, was waiting for one of them to do that" because they knew that wellbutrin lowers seizure threshold and so does buproprion.
All of this information is right there in front of you to be found and thought seriously upon. Do you take the blue pill or the red pill? Do you want to die because you were too fat or do you want to die from whatever damage takes place to your brain during a freaking seizure. Anything to be thin right? This stuff hasn't even come out yet and obviously there are some issues going on that my non medical trained butt can figure out pretty quickly with the information age in affect.
I don't think I want to pick on all 3 of the drugs right now, except to say that we are in for a wave of drugs already approved for other uses that are being used in obesity strategies simply because those drugs were already researched under other conditions. What bothers me is in the way that the metobolic system of an obese individual may cause a vulnerability to some symptoms that may not have appeared in an otherwise "average size" group of research volunteers. If I was participating in a drug trial, I wonder what it would feel like if I was closer to a seizure than I have ever been in my life? I wonder how a lab tech would handle a medical emergency. I would hope that the research assistants who work with the obese would at least be prepared to physically handle someone who needed to be transported to a real medical facility!
One thing with all these drugs is for sure. If one does happen to work, you will be paying for it and taking it every day for the rest of your life, if it doesn't get pulled because it killed a few hundred people who were taking it for years.
I guess it could be worth losing "some weight" (permanently?) if I took a pill every day for the rest of my life. I wonder how much it would cost? Would it have those nasty side affects on me? What will it do to me, or any human, after taking it for over a decade?
Anti-depressants offer so much promise in the field of psychiatry, but unfortunately, they seem to be some of the most dangerous drugs around. I have to go back to the balance, and realize that you simply can't cheat nature. If your depressed, if your big, if your anything, your body is talking to you. I don't think that the body will be satisfied when it calls by feeding it a chemical or cutting it open to challenge millions of years of evolution and change stuff around.
To everything there is a root cause, and to take a shortcut is to miss out on what that cause is entirely. Pills can be great for some things, but when our culture has a corresponding pill for every "problem", there will be further problems because we, as a race, are taking a shortcut and refusing to acknowledge the root cause of so many things. Maybe obesity is just one of several indicators to let us know, as the beings that inhabit this planet, that we are further out of balance with nature than ever in our race's history or evolution.
I don't want to close this post without acknowledging the fact that at least one of the drugs had an original use involving addiction! This was kind of a shock to me, because in my research I have not found too many drugs that actually attempt to confront what one of the main roots to obesity is... Food addiction! I know that my view on that has been addressed slightly, and I will bring it up again here. The way any addiction is treated is by totally taking away the addictive substance. In the case of food addiction this is simply not an option.
I have been wondering how the issue of curing addiction without restricting the object of addiction would work. An opioid receptor antagonist is great for blocking the positive rush of ingesting an opioid, and a norepinephrine and dopamine reuptake inhibitor seem great for flooding the brain with extra dopamine to prevent compulsive behavior. The problem with food addiction is that food is necessary, so when the behavior of taking in too much food or grazing is comforting or relaxing, I am not sure that inhibiting dopamine reuptake is going to do the trick. Maybe when combined with the mental frame of mind of wanting to take a pill to control eating, it may actually cause just enough of a difference in the "eating rush" to cut down on binges.
The research shows that some people lost more weight than the "control group" who did not get the drug, so it does work for some people. I can never argue that kind of science, but I can express concern that taking another pill brings a realm of negative probabilities that are never discovered until a bunch of people have already gotten hurt by them. If "diet and excersize" is what this is all really about, why would there be 3 drugs at a time being introduced? If a drug company knows a certain dosage caused a drug to be pulled because of seizures, why would they continue to do the research with the same dosage when considering it for this new "diet cocktail" type drug? Why do I ask why when we know cash is king? :) Let me finally close then by saying if you want to take Contrave, go ahead, but I sincerely hope you are not one of the few who have seizures in the process. I know that this condition is rare, and those individuals may have been prone to seizures or already had a low threshold, but it's sad that the compulsion and/or desperation to change one's size is going to equate into a process of obese natural selection.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
weights and races
I saw this article and I wanted to bring it into the obesiverse before I really had time to do a lot of commenting on it. I will say that I was reading over the article initially and saw a name that was familiar because I had met her! The name of the article is "Weight discrimination could be as common as racial bias". I hope that articles like this can educate people and make them aware that the prejudice against people of size is real. Even though most obese individuals would not choose to be whatever size they are, they are not presented with any known way of changing this condition without risking other health problems, gaining more weight down the line, or death.
Here is a part of the article:
Lynn McAfee, director of medical advocacy at the non-profit Council on Size and Weight Discrimination in Mt. Marion, N.Y., is not surprised by the findings.
"Until we clean up language like 'war on obesity' and have authorities speak out about it, discrimination will continue to increase," she says.
If I'm not mistaken, I've actually met this person at a "Big As Texas" event way way back around 2001 maybe. She spoke to the group and she was so very well aware of the fen phen issue with PPH, and she talked about the things that were being done to call attention to the problem. I could gather a few of the stories up, but they are simply heartbreaking to say the least. I just had to bring up the fact that I had met this woman so long ago, now she's still being quoted in the media speaking out as a voice for the obese. It is just another surreal irony to me that I would be bringing her quote into the obesiverse several years after being inspired by hearing her talk in the past. The more I write, the more I probably expose exactly what kind of "credentials" I have to be talking on the subject of size acceptance at all! I got more, believe me!
Fen Phen, another drug sold with the promise of improving "quality of life" only to end up shortening people's lives and causing a serious chronic condition in the process. When people complain about the costs of obesity on our health care system, you should read the wiki article about fen phen and see how many billions of dollars in damage this "good intention" caused.
This entry would be called weights and races for a reason though, and that is in the fact that weight discrimination is a serious issue that is being made worse by all of the negative attention given to obesity as a "public health crisis". As a person of just above average size, I even have to stop and realize that this is going to cause average sized people to have an additional negative argument "against obesity" when obesity isn't going to be cured overnight and isn't going anywhere any time soon. There are ways of promoting healthy habits without putting down a group of people. Other types of awareness promote healthier living without spewing data that causes the individual to be singled out and blamed for something they obviously don't have any control over.
When it comes to the discrimination against size being just as common as racial bias, I think people need to pay special attention to the way that past groups have singled out individuals with a passion for solving a problem. It didn't work out too well for the individuals who were singled out... Ever. I know that I could be inappropriate in saying it, but if you were to take every single individual who died sooner than they would have naturally because they took a pill or had a surgery to lose weight, I am starting to wonder if the numbers would be as many, even with, or more than the number of people of a certain persuasion that were executed in Europe around 1939. I don't like using certain words or I would not have danced around that one so carefully! It is a serious thought though. I have always drawn a parallel between the civil rights movement and the size rights movement, and now I am starting to see why the need to consider size rights is getting more and more important with every "initiative" and "mandate".
Here is a part of the article:
Lynn McAfee, director of medical advocacy at the non-profit Council on Size and Weight Discrimination in Mt. Marion, N.Y., is not surprised by the findings.
"Until we clean up language like 'war on obesity' and have authorities speak out about it, discrimination will continue to increase," she says.
If I'm not mistaken, I've actually met this person at a "Big As Texas" event way way back around 2001 maybe. She spoke to the group and she was so very well aware of the fen phen issue with PPH, and she talked about the things that were being done to call attention to the problem. I could gather a few of the stories up, but they are simply heartbreaking to say the least. I just had to bring up the fact that I had met this woman so long ago, now she's still being quoted in the media speaking out as a voice for the obese. It is just another surreal irony to me that I would be bringing her quote into the obesiverse several years after being inspired by hearing her talk in the past. The more I write, the more I probably expose exactly what kind of "credentials" I have to be talking on the subject of size acceptance at all! I got more, believe me!
Fen Phen, another drug sold with the promise of improving "quality of life" only to end up shortening people's lives and causing a serious chronic condition in the process. When people complain about the costs of obesity on our health care system, you should read the wiki article about fen phen and see how many billions of dollars in damage this "good intention" caused.
This entry would be called weights and races for a reason though, and that is in the fact that weight discrimination is a serious issue that is being made worse by all of the negative attention given to obesity as a "public health crisis". As a person of just above average size, I even have to stop and realize that this is going to cause average sized people to have an additional negative argument "against obesity" when obesity isn't going to be cured overnight and isn't going anywhere any time soon. There are ways of promoting healthy habits without putting down a group of people. Other types of awareness promote healthier living without spewing data that causes the individual to be singled out and blamed for something they obviously don't have any control over.
When it comes to the discrimination against size being just as common as racial bias, I think people need to pay special attention to the way that past groups have singled out individuals with a passion for solving a problem. It didn't work out too well for the individuals who were singled out... Ever. I know that I could be inappropriate in saying it, but if you were to take every single individual who died sooner than they would have naturally because they took a pill or had a surgery to lose weight, I am starting to wonder if the numbers would be as many, even with, or more than the number of people of a certain persuasion that were executed in Europe around 1939. I don't like using certain words or I would not have danced around that one so carefully! It is a serious thought though. I have always drawn a parallel between the civil rights movement and the size rights movement, and now I am starting to see why the need to consider size rights is getting more and more important with every "initiative" and "mandate".
by the way, obesity!
I sure hope I don't end up with a bunch of dead links, but I was reading this article about the Governors struggle with the economy, and I saw obesity rearing it's fat, scary head in what I thought would be totally unrelated to the issue.
I saw this one paragraph and had one resounding thought. Here is the paragraph:
[As the meeting opened, first lady Michelle Obama sought governors' help in her campaign to tackle childhood obesity, though she acknowledged, "I know that many of you are stretched thinner than ever in these times and don't actually have money to spare."]
My response is, simply, the balance can be funny! Really though, the economy is not funny, not right now, not at all. I guess there was just no other way (if this quote was accurate) to put it.
Anyway, I don't want to argue public policy because I have been doing so much research in other areas that I would rather explore the more positive flights of fancy so to speak. I know I will get really into some pretty serious and not so pleasant issues, but I want to let this whole "obesity initiative" settle down for a while before laying down any kind of serious comment. I just thought it was interesting that as I take time out to read some boring economic news, I see that obesity is getting so seriously hyped right now. I like this quote and it's a bit harsh for this particular circumstance, but it's a nice way of saying some other choice thoughts about public policy related to sizism.
"Obesity is the last frontier of acceptable hate." - me!
I joke about the balance, but I must have been moved by something to start blogging, and sometimes I have an uncanny intuition about some things as I'm totally blind-sided by others. This obesity obsession has been nothing more than a subtle amusement to me until I started reading about the "what's being done" aspect. That's when I know all hell's about to break loose.
I guess obesity is a good smoke screen because of all these pesky issues that nobody has been able to fix so far. I'm not a business major, but I would think that a better strategy would be to work out the problems that you at least think there is a chance of actually fixing. I guess there is little chance of that, but I will say that going after another cause that has no determinative resolution is a wild goose chase to put it mildly. When I see things like that, I start to really wonder about the intentions and motives of going after so many other unresolvable things. Hmmm.
Any-who, I saw this and the irony of an obesity initiative that could be in jeopardy because of "thin" budgets made the yin-yang symbol spin it's ass off in my head, and laughter to come out of my mouth-hole. Yeah, I really want to come across as "obesity man" the super villain who wrings his hands and laughs in fits with every failure of primitive man to banish his very existence! When I google obesity man all I got was a bunch of articles related to weight loss and research on the dangers of obesity on men. The last entry on the page was this omg! Yep, within days I had to go there, had to bring man boobs into the obesiverse!
Oh, don't get me started! It really "grinds my gears" when a show like biggest loser will show man boobs galore, but won't have one single overhanging female belly in sight, ever! I mean, kudos on the sports bra and the sliver of belly between the bra and the top of the pants, but the guys let it all hang out and I can't catch a "navel-slip" from a female on that show to save my life! It doesn't help that I can't watch it for more than five minutes before the mere prediction of another crying fatty scene has me switching up to a news channel for some laughs. Ok, fat in the news was probably not the place for me to rant about man boobs on tv and the hypocrisy of the way that big round female belly is actually not going to be on your TV. I suspect it's actually considered so distasteful it borders on the obscene. Oh I hate even using that word!
I saw this one paragraph and had one resounding thought. Here is the paragraph:
[As the meeting opened, first lady Michelle Obama sought governors' help in her campaign to tackle childhood obesity, though she acknowledged, "I know that many of you are stretched thinner than ever in these times and don't actually have money to spare."]
My response is, simply, the balance can be funny! Really though, the economy is not funny, not right now, not at all. I guess there was just no other way (if this quote was accurate) to put it.
Anyway, I don't want to argue public policy because I have been doing so much research in other areas that I would rather explore the more positive flights of fancy so to speak. I know I will get really into some pretty serious and not so pleasant issues, but I want to let this whole "obesity initiative" settle down for a while before laying down any kind of serious comment. I just thought it was interesting that as I take time out to read some boring economic news, I see that obesity is getting so seriously hyped right now. I like this quote and it's a bit harsh for this particular circumstance, but it's a nice way of saying some other choice thoughts about public policy related to sizism.
"Obesity is the last frontier of acceptable hate." - me!
I joke about the balance, but I must have been moved by something to start blogging, and sometimes I have an uncanny intuition about some things as I'm totally blind-sided by others. This obesity obsession has been nothing more than a subtle amusement to me until I started reading about the "what's being done" aspect. That's when I know all hell's about to break loose.
I guess obesity is a good smoke screen because of all these pesky issues that nobody has been able to fix so far. I'm not a business major, but I would think that a better strategy would be to work out the problems that you at least think there is a chance of actually fixing. I guess there is little chance of that, but I will say that going after another cause that has no determinative resolution is a wild goose chase to put it mildly. When I see things like that, I start to really wonder about the intentions and motives of going after so many other unresolvable things. Hmmm.
Any-who, I saw this and the irony of an obesity initiative that could be in jeopardy because of "thin" budgets made the yin-yang symbol spin it's ass off in my head, and laughter to come out of my mouth-hole. Yeah, I really want to come across as "obesity man" the super villain who wrings his hands and laughs in fits with every failure of primitive man to banish his very existence! When I google obesity man all I got was a bunch of articles related to weight loss and research on the dangers of obesity on men. The last entry on the page was this omg! Yep, within days I had to go there, had to bring man boobs into the obesiverse!
Oh, don't get me started! It really "grinds my gears" when a show like biggest loser will show man boobs galore, but won't have one single overhanging female belly in sight, ever! I mean, kudos on the sports bra and the sliver of belly between the bra and the top of the pants, but the guys let it all hang out and I can't catch a "navel-slip" from a female on that show to save my life! It doesn't help that I can't watch it for more than five minutes before the mere prediction of another crying fatty scene has me switching up to a news channel for some laughs. Ok, fat in the news was probably not the place for me to rant about man boobs on tv and the hypocrisy of the way that big round female belly is actually not going to be on your TV. I suspect it's actually considered so distasteful it borders on the obscene. Oh I hate even using that word!
ludaverse + obesiverse = phat !
I brought up a video in another post that I thought was "cute" the first time I saw it because there were some really sexy looking plus sized dancers who play a much larger than usual part in the music video.
When I link to the Ludacris video "Get Back" in the other post, I was moved to do a little research on it, and also moved to give my interpretation of the role that the plus sized women play and how it is my opinion that they portray a more positive role than negative.
When watching the video, 5 plus sized women of different sizes are featured in the context of body guards, and they escort Ludacris down a street that is obviously messed up from a "hero vs. villain" type of conflict, and lined with people on both sides who have been spectators in the conflict. The over-all theme of the song "Get Back" involves conflict, and to put it politely, a "get out my face" attitude towards the other party in the conflict. This conflict is hinted at by small references within the lyrics of the song, but it is not my intention to become enthralled with that particular conflict.
When I re-visited the video and the lyrics, I started to see how ironic it is that this song has a central theme that is easy to morph into whatever you feel is your own personal struggle. Part of what makes Ludacris such a successful artist is in the way he can relate personally to his audience and provide them with an opportunity to do the same. Many of his songs portray a strength and an overwhelming ability to deal with personal adversity and overcome the odds to succeed.
When I watch the video, there is an obvious visual element of exaggeration being used, the first hint is the oversize hands and forearms of the artist meant to inspire a comic book sense of strength. When the five voluptuous female body guards appear, it is almost necessary for them to be "larger than life" because they are also a metaphor for physical strength. It is nice, for once, to see a larger woman portrayed as strong and powerful instead of coming across as helpless or a victim that needs to be cured or rescued from their condition. I linked to plus size yoga because when I did a google search for "plus size women of strength" I had to get to the middle of page 2 before plus size and strength was not being talked about in the context of selling plus sized clothing! Not good! It is good that there was at least one site that made reference to plus size and strength of the person, not what they're wearing to work out and lose those pounds!
When I dig deeper, I have to find out by seeing a "other videos directed by" link that lets me know that the video is directed by Spike Jonze, who is also credited as the co-creator of MTV's "Jackass". It's interested that the crew of Jackass had one plus sized male member who would revel in the spectacle of his visual presence and willingly provide himself in various schemes of extreme visual "performance art" so to speak. In one sequel to the Jackass movie, a super size female model is shown jumping onto a little person, providing the extreme spectacle of a very large person coming down on a very little person. In that particular case, I have to put that whole visual in the category of extreme visual art simply because it didn't show intent to ridicule either the supersize individual or the little person, but instead used the extreme nature of the premise (crushing) to provide the visual spectacle and the humor. In this way, it made that stunt deeper than a "fat joke" and instead used the visual vehicle of fat to solicit a reaction in relation to extremes rather than simply making fun of how fat someone is or what their body looks like.
When looking back at the vast collection of his work, I can see where this director is comfortable using extreme images that attempt to distract but end up being an integral part of the work as a whole. Even a more serious artistic endeavor would contain examples of this exaggerated and sometimes distorted imagery. Because of his use of size to indicate strength in the "Get Back" video, and because that role was given to a group of females, I have to come to the conclusion that Mr. Jonze is simply skilled in the use of metaphor and surreal imagery to create a comical theme that still contains serious undertones. When watching the women in the video, I get the cerebral feeling that even though he is using size to create visual affect and draw reaction, he's still on the positive spectrum of the balance because of the simple association between size and power. Because the dancers in the video caused one link to the obesiverse, and the director has been involved with projects that feature super size people in the past, this has created a secondary point of relevance to show how powerful the use of size in media is and how people from all disciplines of media are tempted to use it. I know some people might disagree with the dancers being good or bad for size acceptance, but in my personal opinion, there is more good than bad there.
Besides all of the serious commentary, I have to risk my credibility as a true fat admirer by putting my reputation on the line in saying those are real plus sized women instead of professional skinny dancers made to look like big women. I also have to say that they are looking pretty good, and at different times in the video even Ludacris is enjoying the experience of dancing with and getting close to a hot sexy plus sized woman.
While I can't imagine this particular song being any kind of "size acceptance anthem", I still think that the mood, energy, and some of the lyrical content can be easily related to the size acceptance struggle, and the simple desire of people of size to have a right to exist and be allowed to make their own decisions about what they eat, how much, and what size they happen to be in the moment. When I read the lyrics I can imagine the narrator of the song speaking to the diet and bariatric industries, telling them to "get back" and stop getting in their face trying to sell them cures that never work.
Lyrics to the song below, I know that the real conflict within the song is not relevant to size acceptance, but there is a conflict, a struggle to cope, and an hope for a positive resolution. I really like the "you don't know me like that" line because it is so parallel to the struggle of someone who is obese and being pressured to change themselves but cannot with the inadequate "solutions" being provided at the moment. What's worse is in the way that the very people who are screaming the loudest about "curing obesity" are the ones who have never offered a solution that works for everyone without hurting or even killing anyone in the process. I know it keeps coming up, but the paradox of killing people "for their health" still gets me every time I think about it.
[Intro]
Heads Up! Heads Up! Here's another one.. and a.. and a.. another one.
[Chorus]
(Yeek-Yeek Woop-Woop) Why you all in my ear? Talkin' a whole bunch a shit that I ain't tryin to hear.
Get Back! Motherfucker You don't know me like that.
Get back! Motherfucker You don't know me like that!
(Yeek-Yeek Woop-Woop) I ain't playin' around.. Make one false move, I'll take you down.
Get back! Motherfucker You don't know me like that.
Get back! Motherfucker You don't know me like that!
[Verse 1]
So, so, come on, come on. DON'T get swung on, swung on. It's the knick-knack-patty-whack still riding cadillacs. Family
off the streets, made my homies put the baggies back. (Whoo!) Still snaggin' plaques (yep), still action-packed (yep), and
dope.. i keep it flippin' like acrobats. That's why I pack a mack, that'll crack a back, cause on my waist, there's more
heat than the shaq-attack! But I ain't speakin' about ballin', jus' thinkin' about brawlin' 'til y'all start ballin'. We
all in together now, birds of the feather now, jus' bought a plane so we change in the weather now. So put your brakes on,
cats put your capes on, and knock off your block, get dropped, and have your face blown. Cause I'll prove it, scratch off
the music, like hey little stupid, don't make me looose it!
[Chorus]
[Verse 2]
I came (I came), I saw (I saw), I hit him right dead in the jaw (in the jaw). [x4]
See I caught him with a right hook, caught him with a jab, caught him with an upper cut, kicked him in his ass. Sent him
on his way cause I ain't for that talk, and no trips to the county.. I ain't for that walk! We split like 2 pins at the
end of a lane, we'll knock out your spotlight and put end to your fame. Holding DTP pinned at the end of yo' chain, and put
the booty of a swish at the end of a flaamme.
[Chorus]
[Verse 3]
Hey, you want WHAT with me?! I'm gonna tell you one time, don't FUCK with me! Get down! Beat his ass.. ain't got nothin'
to lose, and i'm havin a bad day, don't make me take it out on you! [x2]
Maann, cause I don't wanna do that. I wanna have a good time and enjoy my Jack.. sit back and watch some women get drunk
as hell, so I can wake up in the morning with a story to tell. I know it's been a little while since I've been out the
house, but now I'm here.. you wanna stand around runnin' yo' mouth? I can't hear nothing you sayin' or spittin', so what's
up? Don't you see we in the club?, man shut the fuck up!
[Chorus]
[Outro]
Ah! We in the red light district!
Ah! We in the red light district!
Whoo! We in the red light district!
Ah! We in the red light district!
Whoo! We in the red light district!
Whoo! The red light district!
Whoo! The red light district..
Ah! The red light district..
When I link to the Ludacris video "Get Back" in the other post, I was moved to do a little research on it, and also moved to give my interpretation of the role that the plus sized women play and how it is my opinion that they portray a more positive role than negative.
When watching the video, 5 plus sized women of different sizes are featured in the context of body guards, and they escort Ludacris down a street that is obviously messed up from a "hero vs. villain" type of conflict, and lined with people on both sides who have been spectators in the conflict. The over-all theme of the song "Get Back" involves conflict, and to put it politely, a "get out my face" attitude towards the other party in the conflict. This conflict is hinted at by small references within the lyrics of the song, but it is not my intention to become enthralled with that particular conflict.
When I re-visited the video and the lyrics, I started to see how ironic it is that this song has a central theme that is easy to morph into whatever you feel is your own personal struggle. Part of what makes Ludacris such a successful artist is in the way he can relate personally to his audience and provide them with an opportunity to do the same. Many of his songs portray a strength and an overwhelming ability to deal with personal adversity and overcome the odds to succeed.
When I watch the video, there is an obvious visual element of exaggeration being used, the first hint is the oversize hands and forearms of the artist meant to inspire a comic book sense of strength. When the five voluptuous female body guards appear, it is almost necessary for them to be "larger than life" because they are also a metaphor for physical strength. It is nice, for once, to see a larger woman portrayed as strong and powerful instead of coming across as helpless or a victim that needs to be cured or rescued from their condition. I linked to plus size yoga because when I did a google search for "plus size women of strength" I had to get to the middle of page 2 before plus size and strength was not being talked about in the context of selling plus sized clothing! Not good! It is good that there was at least one site that made reference to plus size and strength of the person, not what they're wearing to work out and lose those pounds!
When I dig deeper, I have to find out by seeing a "other videos directed by" link that lets me know that the video is directed by Spike Jonze, who is also credited as the co-creator of MTV's "Jackass". It's interested that the crew of Jackass had one plus sized male member who would revel in the spectacle of his visual presence and willingly provide himself in various schemes of extreme visual "performance art" so to speak. In one sequel to the Jackass movie, a super size female model is shown jumping onto a little person, providing the extreme spectacle of a very large person coming down on a very little person. In that particular case, I have to put that whole visual in the category of extreme visual art simply because it didn't show intent to ridicule either the supersize individual or the little person, but instead used the extreme nature of the premise (crushing) to provide the visual spectacle and the humor. In this way, it made that stunt deeper than a "fat joke" and instead used the visual vehicle of fat to solicit a reaction in relation to extremes rather than simply making fun of how fat someone is or what their body looks like.
When looking back at the vast collection of his work, I can see where this director is comfortable using extreme images that attempt to distract but end up being an integral part of the work as a whole. Even a more serious artistic endeavor would contain examples of this exaggerated and sometimes distorted imagery. Because of his use of size to indicate strength in the "Get Back" video, and because that role was given to a group of females, I have to come to the conclusion that Mr. Jonze is simply skilled in the use of metaphor and surreal imagery to create a comical theme that still contains serious undertones. When watching the women in the video, I get the cerebral feeling that even though he is using size to create visual affect and draw reaction, he's still on the positive spectrum of the balance because of the simple association between size and power. Because the dancers in the video caused one link to the obesiverse, and the director has been involved with projects that feature super size people in the past, this has created a secondary point of relevance to show how powerful the use of size in media is and how people from all disciplines of media are tempted to use it. I know some people might disagree with the dancers being good or bad for size acceptance, but in my personal opinion, there is more good than bad there.
Besides all of the serious commentary, I have to risk my credibility as a true fat admirer by putting my reputation on the line in saying those are real plus sized women instead of professional skinny dancers made to look like big women. I also have to say that they are looking pretty good, and at different times in the video even Ludacris is enjoying the experience of dancing with and getting close to a hot sexy plus sized woman.
While I can't imagine this particular song being any kind of "size acceptance anthem", I still think that the mood, energy, and some of the lyrical content can be easily related to the size acceptance struggle, and the simple desire of people of size to have a right to exist and be allowed to make their own decisions about what they eat, how much, and what size they happen to be in the moment. When I read the lyrics I can imagine the narrator of the song speaking to the diet and bariatric industries, telling them to "get back" and stop getting in their face trying to sell them cures that never work.
Lyrics to the song below, I know that the real conflict within the song is not relevant to size acceptance, but there is a conflict, a struggle to cope, and an hope for a positive resolution. I really like the "you don't know me like that" line because it is so parallel to the struggle of someone who is obese and being pressured to change themselves but cannot with the inadequate "solutions" being provided at the moment. What's worse is in the way that the very people who are screaming the loudest about "curing obesity" are the ones who have never offered a solution that works for everyone without hurting or even killing anyone in the process. I know it keeps coming up, but the paradox of killing people "for their health" still gets me every time I think about it.
[Intro]
Heads Up! Heads Up! Here's another one.. and a.. and a.. another one.
[Chorus]
(Yeek-Yeek Woop-Woop) Why you all in my ear? Talkin' a whole bunch a shit that I ain't tryin to hear.
Get Back! Motherfucker You don't know me like that.
Get back! Motherfucker You don't know me like that!
(Yeek-Yeek Woop-Woop) I ain't playin' around.. Make one false move, I'll take you down.
Get back! Motherfucker You don't know me like that.
Get back! Motherfucker You don't know me like that!
[Verse 1]
So, so, come on, come on. DON'T get swung on, swung on. It's the knick-knack-patty-whack still riding cadillacs. Family
off the streets, made my homies put the baggies back. (Whoo!) Still snaggin' plaques (yep), still action-packed (yep), and
dope.. i keep it flippin' like acrobats. That's why I pack a mack, that'll crack a back, cause on my waist, there's more
heat than the shaq-attack! But I ain't speakin' about ballin', jus' thinkin' about brawlin' 'til y'all start ballin'. We
all in together now, birds of the feather now, jus' bought a plane so we change in the weather now. So put your brakes on,
cats put your capes on, and knock off your block, get dropped, and have your face blown. Cause I'll prove it, scratch off
the music, like hey little stupid, don't make me looose it!
[Chorus]
[Verse 2]
I came (I came), I saw (I saw), I hit him right dead in the jaw (in the jaw). [x4]
See I caught him with a right hook, caught him with a jab, caught him with an upper cut, kicked him in his ass. Sent him
on his way cause I ain't for that talk, and no trips to the county.. I ain't for that walk! We split like 2 pins at the
end of a lane, we'll knock out your spotlight and put end to your fame. Holding DTP pinned at the end of yo' chain, and put
the booty of a swish at the end of a flaamme.
[Chorus]
[Verse 3]
Hey, you want WHAT with me?! I'm gonna tell you one time, don't FUCK with me! Get down! Beat his ass.. ain't got nothin'
to lose, and i'm havin a bad day, don't make me take it out on you! [x2]
Maann, cause I don't wanna do that. I wanna have a good time and enjoy my Jack.. sit back and watch some women get drunk
as hell, so I can wake up in the morning with a story to tell. I know it's been a little while since I've been out the
house, but now I'm here.. you wanna stand around runnin' yo' mouth? I can't hear nothing you sayin' or spittin', so what's
up? Don't you see we in the club?, man shut the fuck up!
[Chorus]
[Outro]
Ah! We in the red light district!
Ah! We in the red light district!
Whoo! We in the red light district!
Ah! We in the red light district!
Whoo! We in the red light district!
Whoo! The red light district!
Whoo! The red light district..
Ah! The red light district..
Friday, February 19, 2010
gotta love wiki
Vital reading in the obesiverse, learn more about the size acceptance movement and be enlightened. :)
Wow! I never even knew about the fat underground! :) That's so punk rock! Wiki says "The Fat Underground, founded by Sara Fishman (then Sara Aldebaran) and Judy Freespirit, took issue with the growing bias against obesity in the scientific community. They coined the saying, "a diet is a cure that doesn't work for a disease that doesn't exist". Wow, back in '73! I don't even have a car or comic book that old by now! I was 4 geez.
"In 1969, William Fabrey founded a social club promoting "Fat Pride" called the National Association to Aid Fat Americans, subsequently renamed the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance" More on that later! :)
Wow I can't believe that this link was in the "references" because of a notation that some size acceptance groups will turn the tables and ridicule thin people as well.
I really like this line, because it shows that if you argue with logic, facts, and statistics, you are still wrong when saying "diets don't work"! LOL Here's the line from Wiki: "the common fat acceptance mantra that "diets don't work" is considered by some critics to be an oversimplification that may discourage a person in need of a healthier lifestyle from making responsible and potentially beneficial changes in eating habits.". To apply a quote from one of my favorite animated TV shows "Frisky Dingo", "you can't has cheeseburgers!". OMG I didn't just drag Frisky Dingo into the Obesiverse! lol It is relevant though. It's all relevant! I can oversimplify things a little, "ya got nothin'". I mean, some techniques work for some people some of the time, but even the most extreme and dangerous measures fail a lot, and despite the low mortality stats, we all seem to know someone who ended up being one.
Even Ludacris had to use 5 super-strength super-sized body guards in the video for the song "Get Back". Them look like some sexy voluptuous real women not dancers in fat suits! That's for another post in fat media though.
Wow! I never even knew about the fat underground! :) That's so punk rock! Wiki says "The Fat Underground, founded by Sara Fishman (then Sara Aldebaran) and Judy Freespirit, took issue with the growing bias against obesity in the scientific community. They coined the saying, "a diet is a cure that doesn't work for a disease that doesn't exist". Wow, back in '73! I don't even have a car or comic book that old by now! I was 4 geez.
"In 1969, William Fabrey founded a social club promoting "Fat Pride" called the National Association to Aid Fat Americans, subsequently renamed the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance" More on that later! :)
Wow I can't believe that this link was in the "references" because of a notation that some size acceptance groups will turn the tables and ridicule thin people as well.
I really like this line, because it shows that if you argue with logic, facts, and statistics, you are still wrong when saying "diets don't work"! LOL Here's the line from Wiki: "the common fat acceptance mantra that "diets don't work" is considered by some critics to be an oversimplification that may discourage a person in need of a healthier lifestyle from making responsible and potentially beneficial changes in eating habits.". To apply a quote from one of my favorite animated TV shows "Frisky Dingo", "you can't has cheeseburgers!". OMG I didn't just drag Frisky Dingo into the Obesiverse! lol It is relevant though. It's all relevant! I can oversimplify things a little, "ya got nothin'". I mean, some techniques work for some people some of the time, but even the most extreme and dangerous measures fail a lot, and despite the low mortality stats, we all seem to know someone who ended up being one.
Even Ludacris had to use 5 super-strength super-sized body guards in the video for the song "Get Back". Them look like some sexy voluptuous real women not dancers in fat suits! That's for another post in fat media though.
Hydroxycut is ok , maybe
Originally posted to myspace blog - Tuesday, May 05, 2009
further edited at post
FDA to dieters: Don't use supplement Hydroxycut
Current mood: disappointed
People keep on selling products that promise to fulfill the dream of being "skinny" and people keep getting hurt. What makes this so personally tragic to me is the fact that people are so hesitant to participate in efforts to promote beauty in all shapes and sizes, but they put their money down on dangerous products and surgeries in the hopes of changing something about themselves that has, over the years, become a part of who they are. After the FDA announced this problem, it seems that this product is still hot! Notice all the stuff about "natural"! I bet it is, some of the most toxic chemicals on this planet occur in nature! :) Those models on the site are kinda scary. :) I guess I get uncomfortable at the site of the "perfect people" I'm supposed to be attracted to and uncontrollably compelled to look exactly like.
It probably isn't too far fetched for people of faith to imagine that size is one of the multitudes of things our creator devised a way to make us unique and different from one another ( yes, on purpose ). It isn't hard for a person of science to imagine that size is another form of the endless adaptation that takes place generation after generation under the rules of natural selection.
The way we humans react to size on an emotional level is simply immature and has all the typical markers of hate, bigotry, and racism. Expecting the obese to transform to our liking is like painting everyone the same color to eliminate racism, forcing everyone to dress alike to end sexism, and encouraging euthanasia at a certain age to cure ageism. Particularly disturbing to me is that (potentially) half of the group under this psychological attack are already programmed to wholeheartedly believe everything they are told and follow the herd possibly to meet their end in the process of "extending their life".
The balance is at work.
This unhealthy obsession about weight and size is always meant "for our own good", even when there is a lot of research going on that is still trying to determine those probabilities because we are not given a crystal ball or a DIY manual for the human body. Doctors who emphasize the importance of getting our weight under control are just doing their job, until they recommend doing something so radical and extreme that a patient might not live as long as they would have if left "unopened".
From articles I've read, many people in the medical community already harbor ill feelings towards people of size, a prejudice that has to be resisted and hopefully never acted upon. Too many of us familiar with size acceptance have a list of people we know who were neglected to death in a hospital because of their size as well. I'm not saying they're all bad, just like a bumper sticker I saw about priests, "not all doctors are bad". :) Medical professionals are not going to jump on my case because I'm an obesity obsessed fetishist. I have spent a few weeks solid in a hospital as an advocate for a supersized individual and I can tell you that they do not like to help out very much, at least the few individuals I was exposed to at one hospital in 1998.
The only people scarier than the doctors are the diet inventors! These people want to take your money for a product that doesn't work and can even hurt you. I say all the time that the only proof I have that no product or diet at this point actually works is that fact that "I see fat people". I'm no doctor, lawyer, or statistician, but I believe it when I see it, and I haven't seen the cure just yet.
Dr. Ruth used to have to tell guys all the time that there isn't a pill that makes the penis larger, so get a look at late night TV, google the name of that product, and see how many complaints and lawsuits there are on your own.
This opinion is no doubt much more thorough than future stories that point out the dangers of our well meaning but fail diet gods. My personal feelings on diet and surgery are probably very apparent by now, but it goes so much deeper than I could have possibly explained in this or that comment. I know of quite a few people who might have been alive today that are not because they tried to extend their lives beyond today. The balance is in affect. You can fight the balance, but there is a cost. You can win the battle, but the war can be a draw. You can be sold or conned easily when tempted with something you want badly enough.
I don't have any real writing credentials because I spent a lot of time sharing these opinions in emails to people who could not understand what I was saying or could not figure out why I would risk the quick tang and start spilling the photo agenda and the underlying motive for creating my work. I am compelled to try though because my work is part of the balance, and right now the balance is tilting the wrong way. In a modern age of science, technology, and medical miracles, we are held back from finding the truth about ourselves because we are overly consumed with matters of the cosmetic.
I am motivated by money, I want to write a book one day. I hope that I can benefit personally from spreading what I hope is kind of a dirty, grimy version of the positive truth. If I make a few dollars on a book from each one sold, I can hope that I am simply being rewarded for the positive potential I can bring to a potentially fatal or negatively impacting life choice. I won't be selling something to people that can hurt them or put them down within 30 days, or 11 weeks. There is truth to the statistics that show weight can cause or aggravate existing health problems, but the answer is not to pick on, bully, rip-off, neglect, and flat out execute them while making a few dollars on the old diet con.
Here is the article, don't get me started! :0
FDA to dieters: Don't use supplement Hydroxycut
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press Writer Ricardo Alonso-zaldivar, Associated Press Writer – Sat May 2, 10:05 am ET (2009)
WASHINGTON – Government health officials warned dieters and body builders Friday to immediately stop using Hydroxycut, a widely sold supplement linked to cases of serious liver damage and at least one death.
The Food and Drug Administration said the company that makes the dietary supplement has agreed to recall 14 Hydroxycut products. Available in grocery stores and pharmacies, Hydroxycut is advertised as made from natural ingredients. At least 9 million packages were sold last year, the FDA said.
Dr. Linda Katz of the FDA's food and nutrition division said the agency has received 23 reports of liver problems, including the death of a 19-year-old boy living in the Southwest. The teenager died in 2007, and the death was reported to the FDA this March.
Other patients experienced symptoms ranging from jaundice, or yellowing of the skin, to liver failure. One received a transplant and another was placed on a list to await a new liver. The patients were otherwise healthy and their symptoms began after they started using Hydroxycut, regulators said.
Iovate Health Sciences, which makes the diet pills, said in a statement that the 2007 death of the teenager was not caused by Hydroxycut. The statement gave no details.
"The number of adverse event reports described by the FDA in its advisory is small relative to the many millions of people who have used Hydroxycut products over the past seven years," said the company statement. "Iovate's own assessment of the potential risk associated with the use of these products differs from that expressed by the FDA."
On its Web site, the company said it agreed to the recall out of "an abundance of caution." Iovate is based in Canada, with U.S. offices near Buffalo, N.Y. Consumers can get a refund by returning the pills to the store that sold them, the company said.
Dietary supplements aren't as tightly regulated by the government as medications. Manufacturers don't need to prove to the FDA that their products are safe and effective before they can sell them to consumers.
But regulators monitor aftermarket reports for signs of trouble, and in recent years companies have been put under stricter requirements to alert the FDA when they learn of problems. In 2004, the government banned ephedra, an ingredient in many supplements, linked to heart attacks and strokes.
Katz said it has taken so long to get a handle on the Hydroxycut problem because the cases of liver damage were rare and the FDA has no authority to review supplements before they're marketed. "Part of the problem is that the FDA looks at dietary supplements from a post-market perspective, and an isolated incident is often difficult to follow," she said.
The FDA relies on voluntary reports to detect such problems, and many cases are never reported, officials acknowledge.
Health officials said they have been unable to determine which Hydroxycut ingredients are potentially toxic, partially because the formulation has changed several times.
Public health researcher Ano Lobb, who has studied Hydroxycut and other dietary supplements for Consumer Reports, said the problem may be an ingredient called hydroxycitric acid. Derived from a tropical fruit, it's been linked to liver problems in at least one medical journal study. Lobb said it's likely that other supplements containing the same ingredient remain on the market.
"You really have to be careful about dietary supplements, especially weight-loss pills," said Lobb. "People believe that the FDA has verified that these products are at least safe and effective, and that's really not the case. When you see fantastic claims — that's generally what they are."
I had to bring up something from the 11 week "death by lighter life" article! One of the final paragraphs that barely mentions the other death from this diet simply reads:
Another fatality linked to LighterLife was in December last year when mother-of-five Jacqueline Henson, 40, drunk four litres of water in two hours and was killed by swelling of the brain.
Whoa! That's some serious sh*t there. Shrinks your ass but fatally swells your brain!
further edited at post
FDA to dieters: Don't use supplement Hydroxycut
Current mood: disappointed
People keep on selling products that promise to fulfill the dream of being "skinny" and people keep getting hurt. What makes this so personally tragic to me is the fact that people are so hesitant to participate in efforts to promote beauty in all shapes and sizes, but they put their money down on dangerous products and surgeries in the hopes of changing something about themselves that has, over the years, become a part of who they are. After the FDA announced this problem, it seems that this product is still hot! Notice all the stuff about "natural"! I bet it is, some of the most toxic chemicals on this planet occur in nature! :) Those models on the site are kinda scary. :) I guess I get uncomfortable at the site of the "perfect people" I'm supposed to be attracted to and uncontrollably compelled to look exactly like.
It probably isn't too far fetched for people of faith to imagine that size is one of the multitudes of things our creator devised a way to make us unique and different from one another ( yes, on purpose ). It isn't hard for a person of science to imagine that size is another form of the endless adaptation that takes place generation after generation under the rules of natural selection.
The way we humans react to size on an emotional level is simply immature and has all the typical markers of hate, bigotry, and racism. Expecting the obese to transform to our liking is like painting everyone the same color to eliminate racism, forcing everyone to dress alike to end sexism, and encouraging euthanasia at a certain age to cure ageism. Particularly disturbing to me is that (potentially) half of the group under this psychological attack are already programmed to wholeheartedly believe everything they are told and follow the herd possibly to meet their end in the process of "extending their life".
The balance is at work.
This unhealthy obsession about weight and size is always meant "for our own good", even when there is a lot of research going on that is still trying to determine those probabilities because we are not given a crystal ball or a DIY manual for the human body. Doctors who emphasize the importance of getting our weight under control are just doing their job, until they recommend doing something so radical and extreme that a patient might not live as long as they would have if left "unopened".
From articles I've read, many people in the medical community already harbor ill feelings towards people of size, a prejudice that has to be resisted and hopefully never acted upon. Too many of us familiar with size acceptance have a list of people we know who were neglected to death in a hospital because of their size as well. I'm not saying they're all bad, just like a bumper sticker I saw about priests, "not all doctors are bad". :) Medical professionals are not going to jump on my case because I'm an obesity obsessed fetishist. I have spent a few weeks solid in a hospital as an advocate for a supersized individual and I can tell you that they do not like to help out very much, at least the few individuals I was exposed to at one hospital in 1998.
The only people scarier than the doctors are the diet inventors! These people want to take your money for a product that doesn't work and can even hurt you. I say all the time that the only proof I have that no product or diet at this point actually works is that fact that "I see fat people". I'm no doctor, lawyer, or statistician, but I believe it when I see it, and I haven't seen the cure just yet.
Dr. Ruth used to have to tell guys all the time that there isn't a pill that makes the penis larger, so get a look at late night TV, google the name of that product, and see how many complaints and lawsuits there are on your own.
This opinion is no doubt much more thorough than future stories that point out the dangers of our well meaning but fail diet gods. My personal feelings on diet and surgery are probably very apparent by now, but it goes so much deeper than I could have possibly explained in this or that comment. I know of quite a few people who might have been alive today that are not because they tried to extend their lives beyond today. The balance is in affect. You can fight the balance, but there is a cost. You can win the battle, but the war can be a draw. You can be sold or conned easily when tempted with something you want badly enough.
I don't have any real writing credentials because I spent a lot of time sharing these opinions in emails to people who could not understand what I was saying or could not figure out why I would risk the quick tang and start spilling the photo agenda and the underlying motive for creating my work. I am compelled to try though because my work is part of the balance, and right now the balance is tilting the wrong way. In a modern age of science, technology, and medical miracles, we are held back from finding the truth about ourselves because we are overly consumed with matters of the cosmetic.
I am motivated by money, I want to write a book one day. I hope that I can benefit personally from spreading what I hope is kind of a dirty, grimy version of the positive truth. If I make a few dollars on a book from each one sold, I can hope that I am simply being rewarded for the positive potential I can bring to a potentially fatal or negatively impacting life choice. I won't be selling something to people that can hurt them or put them down within 30 days, or 11 weeks. There is truth to the statistics that show weight can cause or aggravate existing health problems, but the answer is not to pick on, bully, rip-off, neglect, and flat out execute them while making a few dollars on the old diet con.
Here is the article, don't get me started! :0
FDA to dieters: Don't use supplement Hydroxycut
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press Writer Ricardo Alonso-zaldivar, Associated Press Writer – Sat May 2, 10:05 am ET (2009)
WASHINGTON – Government health officials warned dieters and body builders Friday to immediately stop using Hydroxycut, a widely sold supplement linked to cases of serious liver damage and at least one death.
The Food and Drug Administration said the company that makes the dietary supplement has agreed to recall 14 Hydroxycut products. Available in grocery stores and pharmacies, Hydroxycut is advertised as made from natural ingredients. At least 9 million packages were sold last year, the FDA said.
Dr. Linda Katz of the FDA's food and nutrition division said the agency has received 23 reports of liver problems, including the death of a 19-year-old boy living in the Southwest. The teenager died in 2007, and the death was reported to the FDA this March.
Other patients experienced symptoms ranging from jaundice, or yellowing of the skin, to liver failure. One received a transplant and another was placed on a list to await a new liver. The patients were otherwise healthy and their symptoms began after they started using Hydroxycut, regulators said.
Iovate Health Sciences, which makes the diet pills, said in a statement that the 2007 death of the teenager was not caused by Hydroxycut. The statement gave no details.
"The number of adverse event reports described by the FDA in its advisory is small relative to the many millions of people who have used Hydroxycut products over the past seven years," said the company statement. "Iovate's own assessment of the potential risk associated with the use of these products differs from that expressed by the FDA."
On its Web site, the company said it agreed to the recall out of "an abundance of caution." Iovate is based in Canada, with U.S. offices near Buffalo, N.Y. Consumers can get a refund by returning the pills to the store that sold them, the company said.
Dietary supplements aren't as tightly regulated by the government as medications. Manufacturers don't need to prove to the FDA that their products are safe and effective before they can sell them to consumers.
But regulators monitor aftermarket reports for signs of trouble, and in recent years companies have been put under stricter requirements to alert the FDA when they learn of problems. In 2004, the government banned ephedra, an ingredient in many supplements, linked to heart attacks and strokes.
Katz said it has taken so long to get a handle on the Hydroxycut problem because the cases of liver damage were rare and the FDA has no authority to review supplements before they're marketed. "Part of the problem is that the FDA looks at dietary supplements from a post-market perspective, and an isolated incident is often difficult to follow," she said.
The FDA relies on voluntary reports to detect such problems, and many cases are never reported, officials acknowledge.
Health officials said they have been unable to determine which Hydroxycut ingredients are potentially toxic, partially because the formulation has changed several times.
Public health researcher Ano Lobb, who has studied Hydroxycut and other dietary supplements for Consumer Reports, said the problem may be an ingredient called hydroxycitric acid. Derived from a tropical fruit, it's been linked to liver problems in at least one medical journal study. Lobb said it's likely that other supplements containing the same ingredient remain on the market.
"You really have to be careful about dietary supplements, especially weight-loss pills," said Lobb. "People believe that the FDA has verified that these products are at least safe and effective, and that's really not the case. When you see fantastic claims — that's generally what they are."
I had to bring up something from the 11 week "death by lighter life" article! One of the final paragraphs that barely mentions the other death from this diet simply reads:
Another fatality linked to LighterLife was in December last year when mother-of-five Jacqueline Henson, 40, drunk four litres of water in two hours and was killed by swelling of the brain.
Whoa! That's some serious sh*t there. Shrinks your ass but fatally swells your brain!
Thursday, February 18, 2010
I do that stuff!
I was poking around some more way too late at night and came across the adipositivity project site. I thought the photos were really cool. My thing is that I can create 2 or 3 photos that look really artistic and incredible in the way that those photos do, but I only work with people who have accepted me as the guy who is going to create the best photo of them in existence. They don't have any moral hang-ups about being photographed from head to toe fully nude. I've been told in the past that I was "lucky" to ever find a single bbw or ssbbw who would pose nude for me at all. I would not say that I was very lucky, but I sure did eventually find a few, maybe 2 per year, but I have had the opportunity to create a lot of work in that time. I am really fortunate to have regular access to at least one model with a pretty stunning look, and I am free to create whatever type of images I wish to explore because there is no fear hovering over the model about someone "finding out" or "finding them on the net". I am so very fortunate to have occasionally had an opportunity to work with someone who trusted that i was "for real". I realize though that what really happened was that I made myself available for that purpose to someone who was actually hoping to get some good new pics done, and they found me just charismatic enough to give me a chance. :)
I don't want to be sexist by saying it right off the bat, but I sometimes think it is a lot easier for a female photographer to get female (or male for that matter) models interested in a project. Over the time that I have spent reading blogs and watching the kind of photos that get submitted, I am seeing some real fear on the part of those who are brave enough to post a photo that just shows part of them. I don't blame the shy people who are scared to post photos though, because I am very well aware of the potential for negative feedback. Because I have access to some comments left on a youtube video, I can illustrate just how hardcore nasty the anonymous general public can be about size. I realize that in order for someone to feel at ease they truly have to "not care".
This will be a short post, and I don't even scratch the surface that I start to bring up, but I just had to get it out of the way that I have seen so many beautiful, artistic projects that feature bbws and I have regrets that I didn't start the process of submitting certain photos here and there over the past decade so that I might have had more opportunity to work with people who were moved by the work they saw. I realize that at least some part of why it's so difficult to get plus and super-sized women to work on these artistic photo projects is not because they are uncomfortable with their bodies, but because they are uncomfortable with the possibility for ridicule or shame being brought on them for even allowing the photo to be taken and therefore exist at all.
I'm just very fortunate that there exists a certain "type" of woman that has exhibitionist tenancies and is way beyond the point of giving a damn about what other people think. They are flashing boobs at mardi gras, flashing on the Jerry Springer show, flashing to their webcam while in a chat program, and sharing photos with people they chat with online to tempt and tease. These brave souls took the leap of faith and allowed those first images to be created so that they could be encouraged later to create more. If any guy who was lucky enough to get to see a revealing photo was dumb enough to say anything negative it would be him that missed out, not her!
I believe in a "yin and yang" type philosophy, where there is a balance to all things. I will try not to repeat that fact over and over, but it is important to remember that this balance is very real. I really do feel that the more negative press that is given to obesity, the more that people will be compelled to make a statement in a direction that is not expected. I mean, keep pounding out all this anti-obesity propaganda and eventually more skinny people will be like "man, they're already fat and have enough problems maybe we should let them be". I have been discouraged for a long time from making a blog because I felt as if my opinion was so vastly opposite from where so many people are at right now. I have been against any kind of weight related surgery for over 20 years now since hearing the earliest horror stories. Whenever I got into any kind of discussion about my objection to the surgery, all i got was the "health issue". I've said before that it's tragic that 1/100 people will die within a month of having it even though it's being done "for their health". Many more will lose weight only to gain it back and have other problems for the rest of their lives, and some will lose weight and begin to suffer problems with malnutrition. All of the people that argue "for health" obviously care more about "the look" because some of these horrible side affects are not as easily seen as the weight itself. I shudder to think about the things that even the best patients who recruit others neglect to ever say as they talk up the weight loss and how easy it was "for them".
My photography was always "controversial" because my subject was plus sized women, nude, and I'm a dude. This would also probably work harder against me than I could realize from my perspective, but I remained devoted to this cause and I have been rewarded. I have to think that I chose to create work that was explicit in a way that matched my disgust and disappointment with the whole idea of surgery to "correct" something that I have always found so elegant, feminine, and beautiful.
To get to the point! When I see more and more blogs that are pro-size acceptance, I am seeing points of view that I realize are only shared by so few people at this point. When I started to think that there were too many blogs already re-hashing fat issues, I am still motivated to continue because I myself was inspired and impressed that there are others who don't agree with cutting out every fatty's stomach that can afford it (and some that can't).
Ok, I can't get my entire philosophy into the first few entries, but I was again compelled to attempt to bring up at least one photo site because this is the kind of work that I always wanted to create while I was already creating "other stuff". :) I gotta hand it to Leonard Nimoy too, with his full body project! It has got to be a little easier as an old white guy to get a few sexy bbws to strip down and take a few pics if you used to be Spock! I have to hope that they were motivated at least by some small degree by the same things that motivate me in the work I've been fortunate enough to create. The motivation I'm talking about is a desire to create something that shows how elegant, feminine, womanly, and erotic the plus sized woman's form really is. If just one woman sees that series of images and feels that she doesn't have to get cut open to fit in, I think that the work is very very very important indeed. It's exactly what I hope my work has done and continues to do.
I don't want to be sexist by saying it right off the bat, but I sometimes think it is a lot easier for a female photographer to get female (or male for that matter) models interested in a project. Over the time that I have spent reading blogs and watching the kind of photos that get submitted, I am seeing some real fear on the part of those who are brave enough to post a photo that just shows part of them. I don't blame the shy people who are scared to post photos though, because I am very well aware of the potential for negative feedback. Because I have access to some comments left on a youtube video, I can illustrate just how hardcore nasty the anonymous general public can be about size. I realize that in order for someone to feel at ease they truly have to "not care".
This will be a short post, and I don't even scratch the surface that I start to bring up, but I just had to get it out of the way that I have seen so many beautiful, artistic projects that feature bbws and I have regrets that I didn't start the process of submitting certain photos here and there over the past decade so that I might have had more opportunity to work with people who were moved by the work they saw. I realize that at least some part of why it's so difficult to get plus and super-sized women to work on these artistic photo projects is not because they are uncomfortable with their bodies, but because they are uncomfortable with the possibility for ridicule or shame being brought on them for even allowing the photo to be taken and therefore exist at all.
I'm just very fortunate that there exists a certain "type" of woman that has exhibitionist tenancies and is way beyond the point of giving a damn about what other people think. They are flashing boobs at mardi gras, flashing on the Jerry Springer show, flashing to their webcam while in a chat program, and sharing photos with people they chat with online to tempt and tease. These brave souls took the leap of faith and allowed those first images to be created so that they could be encouraged later to create more. If any guy who was lucky enough to get to see a revealing photo was dumb enough to say anything negative it would be him that missed out, not her!
I believe in a "yin and yang" type philosophy, where there is a balance to all things. I will try not to repeat that fact over and over, but it is important to remember that this balance is very real. I really do feel that the more negative press that is given to obesity, the more that people will be compelled to make a statement in a direction that is not expected. I mean, keep pounding out all this anti-obesity propaganda and eventually more skinny people will be like "man, they're already fat and have enough problems maybe we should let them be". I have been discouraged for a long time from making a blog because I felt as if my opinion was so vastly opposite from where so many people are at right now. I have been against any kind of weight related surgery for over 20 years now since hearing the earliest horror stories. Whenever I got into any kind of discussion about my objection to the surgery, all i got was the "health issue". I've said before that it's tragic that 1/100 people will die within a month of having it even though it's being done "for their health". Many more will lose weight only to gain it back and have other problems for the rest of their lives, and some will lose weight and begin to suffer problems with malnutrition. All of the people that argue "for health" obviously care more about "the look" because some of these horrible side affects are not as easily seen as the weight itself. I shudder to think about the things that even the best patients who recruit others neglect to ever say as they talk up the weight loss and how easy it was "for them".
My photography was always "controversial" because my subject was plus sized women, nude, and I'm a dude. This would also probably work harder against me than I could realize from my perspective, but I remained devoted to this cause and I have been rewarded. I have to think that I chose to create work that was explicit in a way that matched my disgust and disappointment with the whole idea of surgery to "correct" something that I have always found so elegant, feminine, and beautiful.
To get to the point! When I see more and more blogs that are pro-size acceptance, I am seeing points of view that I realize are only shared by so few people at this point. When I started to think that there were too many blogs already re-hashing fat issues, I am still motivated to continue because I myself was inspired and impressed that there are others who don't agree with cutting out every fatty's stomach that can afford it (and some that can't).
Ok, I can't get my entire philosophy into the first few entries, but I was again compelled to attempt to bring up at least one photo site because this is the kind of work that I always wanted to create while I was already creating "other stuff". :) I gotta hand it to Leonard Nimoy too, with his full body project! It has got to be a little easier as an old white guy to get a few sexy bbws to strip down and take a few pics if you used to be Spock! I have to hope that they were motivated at least by some small degree by the same things that motivate me in the work I've been fortunate enough to create. The motivation I'm talking about is a desire to create something that shows how elegant, feminine, womanly, and erotic the plus sized woman's form really is. If just one woman sees that series of images and feels that she doesn't have to get cut open to fit in, I think that the work is very very very important indeed. It's exactly what I hope my work has done and continues to do.
New Blog 2nd try!
I’m working on what the blog will look like, and more importantly, how to use the word press software to make the blog as easy to use and still visibly pleasing as possible. Instead of worrying too much about the look, I should be more concerned with the way that blog readers would prefer the site to be set up for easy access to all the different parts. As it stands, I am still figuring out exactly how to create those different “parts” so that I can post regularly in this kind of format and have some articles that have their own place as well.
Ever since creating the obesiverse, it calls out to me to do something to it or learn something about how to “build” it every day. I have plenty of “content” that can be dumped right on into the blog, but I have to work out exactly how to set this thing up before I want to start adding a bunch of stuff. Odds are, once I start to add content, I will also regularly change the theme to see how that affects other aspects of the blog. Eventually, when I come across my favorite theme, I will probably end up leaving it that way for years. For now, I have to thank those who inspired me to even attempt to create this and make it into everything I think it can be. Right now I don’t know if I would even want to link to some of these motivators simply because there isn’t really anything here yet, and they would have plenty of reason to hesitate in linking back when there is nothing of interest to link back to. I look forward to the day when someone finds something I have written here and is moved to link to it from their blog or website or social networking site profile! I have attempted to blog on social networking sites, but the prospect of sudden deletion of one’s account with all work put into it prevented me from ever leaving any serious writing on a url that I have no control over!
Today I had a talk with someone about all things obesiverse, and I hope that I have not gotten in “over my head” so to speak! Within a few moments there was a commercial on TV for one of Kevin Trudeau’s books, and I had to comment to my friend how even he has significance to the obesiverse because he has written a book about diets that “they don’t want you to know about” lol! He has also made a comment in another book that I got ahold of that talks about publicly held companies conspiring to get everyone addicted to low nutritional value processed foods and get them eating a lot of it, becoming more and more part of the obesiverse with every bite. While he didn’t use the term “obesiverse”, he did make reference to the fact that advertising and additives put into these cheap processed foods are a part of a larger problem that people are only recently considering. It seems as if it is just too tempting and too easy to make scapegoats out of every obese person rather than to address the subtle yet traceable reason(s) for why that individual and others end up being obese in the first place.
I have a number of theories about why so many people find themselves “suddenly softer”, and if there was any doubt in my mind as to what I would write about in a blog devoted to the subject of size, it is quickly washed away when considering any one single aspect of obesity itself. I seem to come up with little phrases that best describe a certain situation, and I have done so in the case of explaining one way in which someone simply ends up being huge.
The phrase I came up with is “it takes years of dieting to get that big”. Yes, it’s so tragic and ironic that a person with the minimum amount of compassion should find some sympathy for someone suffering from this syndrome rather than casting blame and acting as if the individual could easily control what is causing them to grow to giant proportions. The very thing that people are encouraged to do to lose weight seems to have exactly the opposite affect. When someone does lose a serious amount of weight, there is a chance that they can have metabolism whiplash and end up gaining even more weight back. This happens over and over until someone is “morbidly obese”. If someone ever sees one of the giant spectacles on a medical cable television show they will wonder “how did that person get that big?”. The sad truth is that diet after diet, weight came off and then the body’s metabolism all but shut down so that upon the slightest deviation from a “permanent” diet will cause weight gain instead of maintaining a constant weight.
There is no other explanation as to why the “medical” community would choose to risk someone’s life “for their health”. It seems that most people I know, myself included, know someone personally who never made it out of the hospital alive after attempting to survive weight loss surgery. The fact that diet is almost always a failure leads to high numbers of people having this extreme surgery or some strange “newer, safer” version. I am always surprised that people don’t catch on about how crazy this surgery is when every few years another version comes out that doesn’t kill quite as many people as the last one did. Of course, any kind of surgery is risky, so someone who is morbidly obese has additional risks, yet doctors claim that the risk of having the surgery is outweighed by it’s benefits (if the patient survives).
This is where I come to one of my other phrases, “shrink’em or kill’em”. If a pill was being given to people and it was discovered that one out of a hundred people taking that pill would die, they would recall that drug pretty fast. With this surgical procedure, my research shows a .5-1% mortality rate with the bypass surgery, so that means there is a potential for one person out of a hundred to die within 30 days of having it. When hearing those stats, I wonder just how “messed up” someone has to be to accept possible death as an outcome. I just hope it’s not the “it won’t happen to me” syndrome! I have reason to doubt those low statistics because I know of several people who had the surgery and died soon after. I guess those people “don’t count” because they didn’t die fast enough after surgery, but they probably didn’t live as long as they would have if they never had the surgery at all!
This is why I have come up with the shrink’em or kill’em theory, because it seems that it’s acceptable to kill one out of one hundred people to perform a surgery that does not even keep the weight off in every patient. So, it’s sad enough that people are so fed up with being harassed about their weight that they would take a chance with their very lives to have it, but then if that patient dies, they were an “acceptable statistic” and the complication would probably blamed on the fact that the patient was so big to begin with. I can’t quite believe that the mortality rate is under one percent if I and almost everyone I talk to about it seem to know at least one individual, if not more, that died way too soon after having surgery. It still makes no sense to me that someone would risk their lives to “improve” their lives, and even worse, they seem totally at ease and even looking forward to losing the ability to ever eat or digest food like a normal human being ever again in their entire lives. So far I can’t find long term studies to see what happens to people decades after the surgery, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s because there isn’t too much concern about what happens to patients long term as long as the money is made and they keep on comin’!
When someone has the surgery, and they claim that it’s for their health, I always think about how life changing this surgery is and how it might not even work for that individual. I do know for sure that if the person survives the surgery without problems, they will still be in for some serious digestive problems for the rest of their lives. I have not done all of my research to even be talking this much about weight loss surgery, but it is one of the things that inspires me most to come out of my shell and share my obesity related experience and knowledge in this type of format. I just couldn’t wait to get to use the phrase “shrink’em or kill’em” though. It seems kind of cold to put it so bluntly, but it’s been my opinion for a long time that these surgeries amount to body modification for the sake of behavior modification. To me it seems almost cruel to use such a surgery to control an eating problem, because a person can still over-eat but will suffer horrible and rarely discussed side affects upon doing so. It’s hard for me to imagine that the medical community’s answer to a food addiction is to cut out part of the person’s stomach or use some “adjustable band” type appliance to control a person’s food intake. It just seems really strange and extreme, like removing a lung so someone can’t smoke without choking. What a way to treat an addiction though huh?
When I bring “the band” up I have to add quickly that I have read somewhere about a “portal” where the band would be accessible once it is “inside of you”. I can just imagine how sexy and attractive that will be, some kind of plastic ring that holds your skin open and keeps you from healing up so the good doctor can re-tighten your band because you shoved too much food in there and somehow moved it or even managed to stretch that thing!
When I mention the treatment of food addiction, I have to bring up the fact that surgery is done because they really don’t know what the hell else to do! They know it’s totally dangerous and crazy painful with awful complications and side affects, but there is just no other way it seems for a doctor to make money helping someone to lose weight unless they cut them open and do something!
When someone is addicted to crack, take the crack away and put the addict somewhere so they can’t get crack. When someone’s addicted to food, cut them open and cut out a piece of them. Sucks to be addicted to food then doesn’t it? You can’t just take away food, so the entire medical and psychological community is basically at a loss for exactly what to “do” about obesity. That’s the only explanation I can imagine for why doctors would be killing one out of a hundred people that get a certain procedure “for their health”.
I guess it’s probably a pretty sweeping statement for me to make, that as a non medical professional I can just look up at all the bariatric doctors and say that they can treat an under-eating disorder with psychology but they have to cut open someone with the reverse over-eating disorder. So, I guess there is a lot more money in surgery than head-shrinking! I’m no doctor and I’m not economist, but I recognize that usually medicine concentrates more on “treatment” than on “cure”. To cure means eventual bankruptcy for whoever cures this or that thing. The money is good at first, but unless you can keep churning out those cures, eventually your wonder-drug will be useless. If the surgery was even a “cure” (which statistically it’s not), then I think they would run out of patients eventually. As a “treatment” though, it’s the procedure that gets them in the door and keeps them coming back for more!
With all the anti-obesity hate-speech out there it actually feels good to write some of these thoughts out, somehow being brave enough to hope there is no consequence from the huge machine of medicine and propaganda.
If the surgery actually worked all the time, had no side affects, and didn’t kill anyone in the process, I wouldn’t have an argument against it. In fact, I would look really selfish to want to see the world “stay fat” just to please me. The truth is, I sometimes wish that the magical “one size fits all” cure to obesity would really come about. As an admirer, it would be quite an adjustment, but I am confident that there would be a few real women out there who chose to continue being who “they are” instead of transforming into who they thought they “always wanted to be”. While this might not make sense to most people, I have done a lot of reading in the area of size related issues, and I have found that occasionally someone actually celebrates the way in which size makes them unique, different, and beautiful.
It is difficult in today’s anti-obesity climate to imagine that someone finds obesity “beautiful”, but within everything there is a balance. Just like one can’t fight fate, one cannot eradicate the balance. Even after all efforts to change the way things are, the balance will remain in affect. To illustrate the way in which this delicate balance exists, I can point out that the inspiration to create the obesiverse came from the over-use in this day and age of the word “obesity”.
Within minutes, I’ve rambled away one entry into this brand spanking new blog! This wasn’t even really the way I would have broached the subject of weight loss surgery, but I guess I can’t hide one of the things that motivates me to express my passion for size acceptance as the fat bodies of weight loss surgery victims continue to be buried every single day. I am sure that I will be writing more about the whole dreaded subject of extreme surgery, but I have to provide a link to something I found and was astounded by how much I agree with. Ten reasons why I hate weight loss surgery by Charlotte Cooper. Wow! That was one thing that inspired me to begin to attempt creating the obesiverse. She also wrote about something that I had actually written about at some point myself, but I made the mistake of blogging on a social networking site so it never was actually in the “real blogosphere”! :) She wrote about Headless Fatties and I thought it was awesome because I also agree wholeheartedly with her views on that!
I love just about everything I’ve read on that blog, but I have a serious science fiction perspective on the venus of willendorf that nobody has probably come close to and I look forward to addressing that as the obesiverse continues it’s evolution into eventual relevance! :)
Ever since creating the obesiverse, it calls out to me to do something to it or learn something about how to “build” it every day. I have plenty of “content” that can be dumped right on into the blog, but I have to work out exactly how to set this thing up before I want to start adding a bunch of stuff. Odds are, once I start to add content, I will also regularly change the theme to see how that affects other aspects of the blog. Eventually, when I come across my favorite theme, I will probably end up leaving it that way for years. For now, I have to thank those who inspired me to even attempt to create this and make it into everything I think it can be. Right now I don’t know if I would even want to link to some of these motivators simply because there isn’t really anything here yet, and they would have plenty of reason to hesitate in linking back when there is nothing of interest to link back to. I look forward to the day when someone finds something I have written here and is moved to link to it from their blog or website or social networking site profile! I have attempted to blog on social networking sites, but the prospect of sudden deletion of one’s account with all work put into it prevented me from ever leaving any serious writing on a url that I have no control over!
Today I had a talk with someone about all things obesiverse, and I hope that I have not gotten in “over my head” so to speak! Within a few moments there was a commercial on TV for one of Kevin Trudeau’s books, and I had to comment to my friend how even he has significance to the obesiverse because he has written a book about diets that “they don’t want you to know about” lol! He has also made a comment in another book that I got ahold of that talks about publicly held companies conspiring to get everyone addicted to low nutritional value processed foods and get them eating a lot of it, becoming more and more part of the obesiverse with every bite. While he didn’t use the term “obesiverse”, he did make reference to the fact that advertising and additives put into these cheap processed foods are a part of a larger problem that people are only recently considering. It seems as if it is just too tempting and too easy to make scapegoats out of every obese person rather than to address the subtle yet traceable reason(s) for why that individual and others end up being obese in the first place.
I have a number of theories about why so many people find themselves “suddenly softer”, and if there was any doubt in my mind as to what I would write about in a blog devoted to the subject of size, it is quickly washed away when considering any one single aspect of obesity itself. I seem to come up with little phrases that best describe a certain situation, and I have done so in the case of explaining one way in which someone simply ends up being huge.
The phrase I came up with is “it takes years of dieting to get that big”. Yes, it’s so tragic and ironic that a person with the minimum amount of compassion should find some sympathy for someone suffering from this syndrome rather than casting blame and acting as if the individual could easily control what is causing them to grow to giant proportions. The very thing that people are encouraged to do to lose weight seems to have exactly the opposite affect. When someone does lose a serious amount of weight, there is a chance that they can have metabolism whiplash and end up gaining even more weight back. This happens over and over until someone is “morbidly obese”. If someone ever sees one of the giant spectacles on a medical cable television show they will wonder “how did that person get that big?”. The sad truth is that diet after diet, weight came off and then the body’s metabolism all but shut down so that upon the slightest deviation from a “permanent” diet will cause weight gain instead of maintaining a constant weight.
There is no other explanation as to why the “medical” community would choose to risk someone’s life “for their health”. It seems that most people I know, myself included, know someone personally who never made it out of the hospital alive after attempting to survive weight loss surgery. The fact that diet is almost always a failure leads to high numbers of people having this extreme surgery or some strange “newer, safer” version. I am always surprised that people don’t catch on about how crazy this surgery is when every few years another version comes out that doesn’t kill quite as many people as the last one did. Of course, any kind of surgery is risky, so someone who is morbidly obese has additional risks, yet doctors claim that the risk of having the surgery is outweighed by it’s benefits (if the patient survives).
This is where I come to one of my other phrases, “shrink’em or kill’em”. If a pill was being given to people and it was discovered that one out of a hundred people taking that pill would die, they would recall that drug pretty fast. With this surgical procedure, my research shows a .5-1% mortality rate with the bypass surgery, so that means there is a potential for one person out of a hundred to die within 30 days of having it. When hearing those stats, I wonder just how “messed up” someone has to be to accept possible death as an outcome. I just hope it’s not the “it won’t happen to me” syndrome! I have reason to doubt those low statistics because I know of several people who had the surgery and died soon after. I guess those people “don’t count” because they didn’t die fast enough after surgery, but they probably didn’t live as long as they would have if they never had the surgery at all!
This is why I have come up with the shrink’em or kill’em theory, because it seems that it’s acceptable to kill one out of one hundred people to perform a surgery that does not even keep the weight off in every patient. So, it’s sad enough that people are so fed up with being harassed about their weight that they would take a chance with their very lives to have it, but then if that patient dies, they were an “acceptable statistic” and the complication would probably blamed on the fact that the patient was so big to begin with. I can’t quite believe that the mortality rate is under one percent if I and almost everyone I talk to about it seem to know at least one individual, if not more, that died way too soon after having surgery. It still makes no sense to me that someone would risk their lives to “improve” their lives, and even worse, they seem totally at ease and even looking forward to losing the ability to ever eat or digest food like a normal human being ever again in their entire lives. So far I can’t find long term studies to see what happens to people decades after the surgery, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s because there isn’t too much concern about what happens to patients long term as long as the money is made and they keep on comin’!
When someone has the surgery, and they claim that it’s for their health, I always think about how life changing this surgery is and how it might not even work for that individual. I do know for sure that if the person survives the surgery without problems, they will still be in for some serious digestive problems for the rest of their lives. I have not done all of my research to even be talking this much about weight loss surgery, but it is one of the things that inspires me most to come out of my shell and share my obesity related experience and knowledge in this type of format. I just couldn’t wait to get to use the phrase “shrink’em or kill’em” though. It seems kind of cold to put it so bluntly, but it’s been my opinion for a long time that these surgeries amount to body modification for the sake of behavior modification. To me it seems almost cruel to use such a surgery to control an eating problem, because a person can still over-eat but will suffer horrible and rarely discussed side affects upon doing so. It’s hard for me to imagine that the medical community’s answer to a food addiction is to cut out part of the person’s stomach or use some “adjustable band” type appliance to control a person’s food intake. It just seems really strange and extreme, like removing a lung so someone can’t smoke without choking. What a way to treat an addiction though huh?
When I bring “the band” up I have to add quickly that I have read somewhere about a “portal” where the band would be accessible once it is “inside of you”. I can just imagine how sexy and attractive that will be, some kind of plastic ring that holds your skin open and keeps you from healing up so the good doctor can re-tighten your band because you shoved too much food in there and somehow moved it or even managed to stretch that thing!
When I mention the treatment of food addiction, I have to bring up the fact that surgery is done because they really don’t know what the hell else to do! They know it’s totally dangerous and crazy painful with awful complications and side affects, but there is just no other way it seems for a doctor to make money helping someone to lose weight unless they cut them open and do something!
When someone is addicted to crack, take the crack away and put the addict somewhere so they can’t get crack. When someone’s addicted to food, cut them open and cut out a piece of them. Sucks to be addicted to food then doesn’t it? You can’t just take away food, so the entire medical and psychological community is basically at a loss for exactly what to “do” about obesity. That’s the only explanation I can imagine for why doctors would be killing one out of a hundred people that get a certain procedure “for their health”.
I guess it’s probably a pretty sweeping statement for me to make, that as a non medical professional I can just look up at all the bariatric doctors and say that they can treat an under-eating disorder with psychology but they have to cut open someone with the reverse over-eating disorder. So, I guess there is a lot more money in surgery than head-shrinking! I’m no doctor and I’m not economist, but I recognize that usually medicine concentrates more on “treatment” than on “cure”. To cure means eventual bankruptcy for whoever cures this or that thing. The money is good at first, but unless you can keep churning out those cures, eventually your wonder-drug will be useless. If the surgery was even a “cure” (which statistically it’s not), then I think they would run out of patients eventually. As a “treatment” though, it’s the procedure that gets them in the door and keeps them coming back for more!
With all the anti-obesity hate-speech out there it actually feels good to write some of these thoughts out, somehow being brave enough to hope there is no consequence from the huge machine of medicine and propaganda.
If the surgery actually worked all the time, had no side affects, and didn’t kill anyone in the process, I wouldn’t have an argument against it. In fact, I would look really selfish to want to see the world “stay fat” just to please me. The truth is, I sometimes wish that the magical “one size fits all” cure to obesity would really come about. As an admirer, it would be quite an adjustment, but I am confident that there would be a few real women out there who chose to continue being who “they are” instead of transforming into who they thought they “always wanted to be”. While this might not make sense to most people, I have done a lot of reading in the area of size related issues, and I have found that occasionally someone actually celebrates the way in which size makes them unique, different, and beautiful.
It is difficult in today’s anti-obesity climate to imagine that someone finds obesity “beautiful”, but within everything there is a balance. Just like one can’t fight fate, one cannot eradicate the balance. Even after all efforts to change the way things are, the balance will remain in affect. To illustrate the way in which this delicate balance exists, I can point out that the inspiration to create the obesiverse came from the over-use in this day and age of the word “obesity”.
Within minutes, I’ve rambled away one entry into this brand spanking new blog! This wasn’t even really the way I would have broached the subject of weight loss surgery, but I guess I can’t hide one of the things that motivates me to express my passion for size acceptance as the fat bodies of weight loss surgery victims continue to be buried every single day. I am sure that I will be writing more about the whole dreaded subject of extreme surgery, but I have to provide a link to something I found and was astounded by how much I agree with. Ten reasons why I hate weight loss surgery by Charlotte Cooper. Wow! That was one thing that inspired me to begin to attempt creating the obesiverse. She also wrote about something that I had actually written about at some point myself, but I made the mistake of blogging on a social networking site so it never was actually in the “real blogosphere”! :) She wrote about Headless Fatties and I thought it was awesome because I also agree wholeheartedly with her views on that!
I love just about everything I’ve read on that blog, but I have a serious science fiction perspective on the venus of willendorf that nobody has probably come close to and I look forward to addressing that as the obesiverse continues it’s evolution into eventual relevance! :)
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