love handles a lifesaver?

I had to post this here because I have been seriously slacking on the blog and when reading news for "entertainment" I came across an article that I could not resist posting! There is another article in a local paper I had to hunt down as well after reading this story.

I know it's unrealistic to imagine that there could be any truth to it, but I really like the last quote from the woman in the article that says she wants to be as big as she can get if it's going to stop a bullet! I think it's debatable how efficient that fat anywhere in the body could actually stop a bullet, but it's interesting to note in this particular example the way in which having love handles did, indeed, play a role in determining this woman's survival under the circumstances.

I know from experience that fat can be really sensitive, so in no way would this woman be spared from the pain, but at least there is the mild possibility that her fat could have slowed velocity of the bullet just enough so that it was less likely that the bullet would have bounced around and done a lot more damage than it could have. It's also interesting to imagine that because fat kind of pushes other stuff around in the body, perhaps this woman was saved from perforation of her intestines. I've read an article months back that talked about a woman passing away in a hospital waiting room with that condition, so I know it can be really serious.

I know that it's hard to imagine very many actual realistic advantages to being overweight these days, but because there is always a balance at work, there will always be small examples here and there that show us how we should be grateful for the things that go our way instead of trying to change other people's lives because of what we perceive as an intolerable difference. One could say that this woman may have suffered disadvantage after disadvantage that she would never be aware of because she is big. To see this one advantage appear, it's easy to dismiss all of the things that might have been different for this individual if she had not been overweight. At the same time though, she might have really been more seriously injured if she had been smaller, so maybe all of the inconveniences of being larger would be minor compared to her life ending on that particular evening.

As usual, I have to read so much more into one small news story than most people would. I don't think that there are small stories though, only small minds.

Recently I considered again why I would have been so compelled to create this blog, and a I realized that another good inspiration would be intolerance. I will probably say it over and over again as I write here (when I can), people are meant to be different sizes. People may not be meant to be over 3, 4 or 5 hundred pounds, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the effort to make more people lose weight has caused the opposite to happen. When I say that it takes "years of dieting" to get up to 300lbs, I have to realize that for the past decade we have been more consumed than ever to lose weight. It's ironic because there is real data that shows the risk of re-gaining even more weight after losing weight.

Maybe, just maybe, several years ago when people got worked up about weight last time, a bunch of people really did lose weight! Now that it's ten years later, it has come back, and it has taken others with it as well! I think it's ill-advised and potentially dangerous to the public health to create sudden fat-panic and cause a short period of dieting to be followed by a subsequent re-gain and subsequent added growth.

If I really was obesity man, I would have to hope that people keep right on dieting and losing as much weight as possible, because years down the road when they stop taking that pill or stop restricting themselves from a few "off diet" foods, they will be on the road to gaining more than they ever lost to begin with.

I think that because we are a nation of people who really believe we can accomplish anything, we should try to educate people about healthy diet and the importance of physical activity. When that crosses over into urging a lot of people to lose weight, it is almost certain that five years down the line we will have a big group of even heavier people. I think that we should start urging people to lose weight when we really do figure out the metabolic process and how to really lose weight in a safe natural way that doesn't encourage re-gain once some routine changes.

The article is below

Woman says her love handles saved her life

Tue Feb 23, 9:17 pm ET Associated Press version

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. – A Florida woman said her love handles saved her life when she was shot entering an Atlantic City bar. Samantha Lynn Frazier said she heard two pops when she walked into Herman's Place early Saturday. The 35-year-old then felt pain and saw blood on her hand after she grabbed her left side. Atlantic City police said Frazier was an innocent bystander.

Detective Lt. Charles Love said the gunman was aiming for a man who escaped with a bullet hole in his down jacket.

The suspect remains at large.

Frazier told The Press of Atlantic City that 'I could have been dead. They said my love handles saved my life."

Frazier also told the newspaper that she had been "hollering" that she wanted to lose weight. She now said "I want to be as big as I can if it's going to stop a bullet."