Voulez-vous the bus.

(h/t to Jezebel)

Let me tell you, when I read the "etiquette" column linked through Jez, I damn near died. I mean, seriously. First of all, just the title alone is ridonk: "Do the obese really deserve contempt?" Because it's a question that only has one answer, which is "DUH."

Now, of course, the douchebaggions of the internet/world would say "DUH, of course they deserve our contempt because they're smelly/awful/ugly/horrific/lazy/blah blee blah blah blah". I would wager the comments on said article are chock-full so, as always, dear readers, avoid. On Planet Jane, however, the "DUH" is followed by another question: "are you dumb?" Don't get me wrong, there are plenty who I think deserve my contempt in several areas of my daily life, but my contempt has nothing to do with the simple fact that they, you know, EXIST. I don't zero in on Joe Dude standing on the corner and toss him into the Contempt Column. If he opens his mouth and says something asinine, then it's time for him to be launched into Contempt Town.

I think the author of said article, Mary Mitchell from Seattle, means well...but I also think we all know how absolutely jacked shit gets when somebody "means well". She "means well" when she makes statements like:

"The fact is, most obese people are fundamentally just average-sized folks who have become trapped under layers of fat and can't seem to find a way out"

Or suggestions like:

"Be wary of activities that require a lot of walking or standing. You would do the same for anyone with a walker or wheelchair."

I've never, EVER been "average-sized". Ever. I used to joke that I sprang forth from my mother's birth canal a size 14 and never looked back. I wouldn't know what "average-sized" feels like because I've always been big. I didn't encounter a boy that was taller than me until I hit high school. I was never small enough to shop at Express or the Gap. So when the "well-meaning" get on a roll about how much pain I must be in from my fat, it's like they're talking about a Jane that exists on some other plane. I'm not in pain - well, I'm achy because I've been a walking stressball for the better part of the last nine months thanks to work, and I have a difficult time getting rid of tension. I'm not "trapped" under layers of fat. I'm not being "smothered" or "choking" or any other number of dramatic adjectives. I'm just fat, that's all. I've always been fat, fat is my default, and it's something that I am done fighting with.

Please don't assume that because I'm fat that ambulating or being upright is the bane of my existence. In fact, stop assuming that you can figure out by eyeballing me what I'm capable of doing or not doing. And that little nugget (cuz you dug it) bit of advice goes for EVERYONE you might encounter, not simply us folks who are "trapped" under layers of fat. Add that to your Mannerly To-Do List - stop fucking thinking you know precisely how healthy or unhealthy/capable or incapable someone is simply by clapping eyes upon them. Or what their lives "must be" like. Or how much they eat or don't eat.

You would think that would be common sense, but as we've learned over the years, and are reminded again and again and again pretty much every single freaking day, fatness and common sense rarely mingle in the cocktail party that is society. Read more on this article...

The Infernal Optimist.

“Starting Monday, I’ll be perfect.” – from ‘Starting Monday’, a play by Anne Commire

Happy New Year, to those of you who celebrate it. It’s a dreadful time of year if you’re a Fat Acceptance Funperson, since it’s difficult to escape the advertising pile-on courtesy of the weight loss industry – did you KNOW that if you eat “right” and exercise, YOU WILL LOSE WEIGHT (results may vary)??? If you never, ever, pinky-swear EVER eat another cheeseburger, donut, or anything involving fat, carbohydrates, sugar, or flavor, YOU WILL LOSE WEIGHT (results may vary)??? If you pay a company a large amount of money, YOU WILL LOSE WEIGHT (results not typical)! So whip out those checkbooks, chubsters, because 2009 is YOUR YEAR…TO COMPLETELY SUCK THE JOY OUT OF EATING! AGAIN!



That violently sarcastic aside out of the way, it’s also a dreadful time of year if you’re a cynic. So you can imagine the kind of brain-injuring facedesking I’ve been doing for the last few days. The approach of the New Year always brings out the “holy fucking SHIT, the second the time clicks over to 12:00:01 January 1, 2009, I am going to sprout wings, pixie dust is going to fall out of my ass, and I AM TURNING INTO A UNICORN!!!!” in people, and while I *did* turn into a unicorn, I remain extraordinarily cynical. I’m not one to see January 1 as a tabula rasa. And I tend to react poorly, if silently, to the optimists who are bound and determined to let the world know that January 1 IS a magical date and it’s a time for renewal and it’s a clean slate and you’re starting again so shut up and don’t raise that eyebrow at me, Cynical Susie, because you’ll see! I’m never 100 percent sure when an optimist throws variations of “you’ll see!!!” at me if it’s playful…or if it’s kind of threatening. It’s very easy to mentally substitute an optimist trilling “You’ll see!” all Glinda the Good Witch-style with the Wicked Witch of the West, shaking her fist and cackling, “You’ll see…how about a little fire, Scarecrow?!?!??!!”

I think part of my inability to join the Pixie Dust Club comes from being a part of a group of people who aren’t exactly legendary for getting a fair shake. Hell, go Googling for stories about fat and you’re going to see borderline vitriolic diatribes from the U.S., the U.K., and many points in between about how you, you obese beast you (or “obeast”, if you will), is responsible for a remarkable number of ills in the world and how you deserve to be shat upon from a great height to teach you lessons about “control” and living “right”. It’s rather hard for me (and keep in mind, I do only speak for myself on this here blog) to run out into Daley Plaza, joyfully twirl around in circles, and declare my love for life, the world and all of its inhabitants. (Imagine Ron Burgundy in “Anchorman” when he screams, “Veronica Corningstone and I had SEX and we are in LOVE!” and you’ll catch my vibe of just how I would do that twirling and declaring.) When you’re fat and you’re visible, the likelihood of you seeing the very worst in people is, unfortunately, high. I’ve been remarkably lucky compared to others, and when I read stories of how others have been treated in a society that loves to pride itself on being super-tolerant and so goshdurned welcoming (except when they’re not), it chews away at my soul and dials up the rage something fierce and I can’t play the Glad Game.

I’m a grownup, staring down the barrel at 37, I’ve got some coping tools to withstand the kind of nastiness other grownups are capable of throwing. If I was a fat kid or fat teen in today’s world, I don’t know that I’d be able to survive the sheer amount of “YOU ARE BAD” messages being sent each and every day. You’ve got five-year-old kids sweating over the sizes of their asses. As grownups, we know the crazy-making that dieting is, the ridiculous microscope we put on every single thing that goes into our mouths and how much exercising we do and whether that’s “good enough” and determining our worth simply through the number on the scale. Do you think saddling a child with that nonsense is “healthy”? Is it worth setting up more children for years upon years of self-hatred and torture in the name of “health” that is less about actual health and more about thinness?

I’d love it if the mainstream media and all their assorted screenworthy doctors would simply admit that so much of the demand for “health” among the world’s citizens was less about actual health and more about aesthetics. Let’s stop bullshitting ourselves. How many posts on any given message board, be it about dieting or something completely related, has anything to do with “health” and everything to do with “I want to fit into a size __”? Much like 12:00:01 on January 1 turns us into beautiful unicorns with pixie dust flittering out of our bungs, being a size ___ is the benchmark for so many of us where our lives will truly begin, where the true us will finally emerge, and our lives will be truly worth living.

It all causes me recall tales from my fat youth (no, my youth was not electric, it was fat): one of my friends smoked up to me and informed me that her mother had spotted me at some sort of school function (perhaps the school talent show, maybe me playing in orchestra as I was a first chair violist, THANK YOU VERY MUCH). The mother asked my friend, “does she (meaning me) have any friends?” My friend, bless her heart, said in that inimitable kid way, “MO-THER!!! Of COURSE she has friends!! I’M her friend!” Things like that were benchmarks for me. Whenever someone took a shot at me because I was fat, I refused to retreat to the corner and shut down because the fat kid should shut up and disappear. When I was singing a solo in the variety show in high school and had to haul ass out of the theater and boogie down the hallway in order to get backstage and two lunkheaded teen boys yelled “FREAK!” at me as I passed, I only sang louder, I only made myself more visible. Perhaps my innate defiance, despite so many really shitty times (many in the past year alone, go fuck yourself 2008), could pass as optimism. But my brand of “optimism” requires one to see the world as a place that is great for some people and crap for others, and no amount of life is a cabaret-ing can alter the inequities of the world and this society we’re in without a radical attitude change from pretty much everybody. Empty words peeled off a poster hanging in a third grade classroom or in an office (you know the ones – like the orange tabby hanging off a branch and the caption, “Hang on! Friday’s coming!”) are as empty as the dreaded calories in something that isn’t on your “good” foods list. Chances are that cynical person you know that rolls his/her eyes whenever you bust out singing "Don't Rain on My Parade" has got plenty good reason for that eye-roll. If you're going to demand we turn our frowns upside down, we demand you take a pause from chipper cause to try and understand why our eyeballs are stuck in the sarcastic position.

Read more on this article...

Why we need an under-informed person tax.

New York governor David Paterson weighs in today on CNN.com about why, for the love of God and all that's holy, New York state needs an "obesity" tax--that is, a tax on sugared pop ("soda" for some of you) and juices that have less than 70 percent actual juice in them.

Here's the link to the article itself: O M G THE CHILLLLLDREN!!!!!



It's the usual song-and-dance that we're all used to - OMG the fat children are taking over OMG fat causes everything that's bad and wrong with the world OMG the only way to solve it is to tax the shit out of junk food OMG OMG OMG.

The one bit that actually is worth more than an eye-roll is this:

"To address the obesity crisis, we need more than just a surcharge on soda. We need to take junk food out of our schools. We need to encourage our children to exercise more. And we need to increase the availability of healthy food in underserved communities."

Now, of course, take out the "to address the obesity crisis" and replace it with "to address the lack of access many communities and citizens have to quality foods and adequate healthcare", and you've got something there. But instead, Gov. Paterson is, like so many ill-informed government types and regular folks, waving the OBEEEESITY EPIDEMIC!!!!! flag because panic sells. Panic is profitable. Actual information isn't sexy, people.

Let us take a moment to repeat the following: CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION.

Obesity causes serious health problems like type 2 diabetes - WRONG. CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION
high blood pressure- WRONG. CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION
high cholesterol - WRONG. CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION
It puts children at much greater risk for life-threatening conditions such as cardiovascular disease and cancer - WRONG AGAIN. CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION.

"Just as the cigarette tax has helped reduce the number of smokers and smoking-related deaths, a tax on highly caloric, non-nutritional beverages can help reduce the prevalence of obesity." No, it'll just mean that people will either pay the tax on sugared pop/pseudo-juice and CONTINUE BEING FAT or cut back on drinking sugared pop/pseudo-juice and CONTINUE BEING FAT. It's wacky how that whole thing works. I rarely drink sugared pop. I like the taste of diet pop so that is what I choose to drink. Holy shit, folks, STILL FAT.

The deliciously spectacular Kate Harding discusses it further, so have a peek. There's also a link in there leading to another quality post about how it would be so lovely for the government to invest some serious money in getting people good food, safe places to get out and gad about, and quality healthcare. It would be such a delight if the government would invest some serious time in actually making an effort to do research and for someone--ANYONE--to use some critical thinking. I mean, I know that's plumb nutty to even suggest, but I reckon it's worth a try.

Oh, and the other thing that made me snort, because PLEASE:

We must never stigmatize children who are overweight or obese.

But you already do, boss. And with more and more legislative horseshit like this, with "The Biggest Loser" and every ad for every weight-loss company, and every bit of media that screams "FAT = DEATH", you stigmatize fat kids, you stigmatize fat adults. By recycling junk science and half-truths, you're not going to magically make people healthy. You're making it clear who is acceptable and who isn't, who is worthy and who isn't, who belongs and who doesn't. Who is the enemy and who isn't. You are simply helping along a nation that already has an eating disorder spiral down the drain at an ever-quickening pace.

Read more on this article...

Talking out both sides of your mouth.

"Removal of Aussie model sparks up skinny debate", Yahoo informed me today, and the gist of it is that a young woman who appeared to have lost weight since moving to Paris to do runway, and she was briefly pulled from the show so that they could ascertain her health status.



A couple things caught my eye and caused me to "Bwuhhhh?" this morning as I sat at my desk. There was the agency spokeswoman stating, ""She is on a positive track now and is going to relax, take time out, not work as hard and have lunches and dinners." The vibe I catch from it is like, "we'd best make sure people know she's not a complete hog and having *gasp* BREAKFAST" combined with that old PR move of showing Hollywood celebrities who have been tagged by the tabloids as "OMG TOO THIN!" eating absolutely everywhere they go so as to prove, somehow, that Hollywood celebrities are just like us.

The other thing that caused my head to tilt like Nipper the RCA dog was this bit:

Spain and Italy have recommended banning catwalk models with a body mass index (BMI) of less than 18.5 -- a measure expressing a ratio of weight to height -- but shows in London, New York and Paris say this index is not an accurate measure of health. Wait wait wait WAIT a second, hold up, hold up, HOLD THE PHONE HERE, COWBOY. Are you telling me...that the BMI...isn't an accurate measure of health? But every frigging time I turn on the T and V or look at the Internets and they talk about the Obeeeeesity Epidemic, the doctor fellas and suchnot are telling me that the BMI *IS SO* an accurate measure of health! Let's take me as an example. According to the Most Blessed And True BMI charts, I have a BMI of 90 bazillion with a side of turkey gravy. (Actually, my BMI is 41.3 - SACRE BLEU I AM MORRRRRRBIDLY OBESICAL!) From a "medical" point of view, my heart should be exploding any...minute...now.

*waits*
*keeps waiting*
*checks watch*
*has a bit of dried pineapple*

So it is quite clear that I'm only moments away from keeling over because the BMI is an accurate, no-bullshit measure of a person's health. Oh, but not if you're a fashion model or otherwise a thin citizen of the world. In order for me to be considered "normal", I should clock in at 125 to 165 pounds. Even when I was food journaling my metaphorical balls off and exercising five days a week and watching every single item that flew into my mouth, the lowest weight I ever achieved in my life (that I can recall) was 225. This is me at 225, when I was 18 years old (I was big into the Cure, so shoosh):



This is me at 280 and 35:



Wow, I can sure tell the difference...can't...you? And I think it's clear that it took all of my effort and energy to kick up that leg in such a saucy fashion. Shortly after this picture was taken, I had to lay down on the walkway for a while. I know the wizard peeking out of that hole up in the Excalibur's thinking "FAT HOG!" But look! I was being "good"! I was drinking a Diet Dr. Pepper, goddammit!

The simple fact of the matter is, no matter what I do (and I have done it over and over and over again, so no need to pass on "helpful tips" on ways that dadgummit, this time around I could finally drop those pesky 120 pounds I've carried since forever), I am NEVER going to see 165 pounds until I've been in the ground for a couple of years. I'd be shocked if I ever saw 225 again, mostly because I suspect I would discover soon after that I had some sort of awful disease that was devouring me from the inside out or that I had an unknown twin residing in me, Rusty Venture-style.

Another thing that caught my eye and irked the snot out of me occurred while I was eating dinner tonight (mmmm, peas)-- that ad for Ensure, which is used in nursing homes to keep old and sickly people from, you know, starving to death because they can't eat for any number of reasons. Now it's being touted as, basically, a meal replacement. There's all sorts of fucked up tied into that sort of shit, but that's not my current bitch. My current bitch is that Ensure should be used by adults who aren't "always eating right", the smarmy voiceover says. So if you're the kind of hateful, un-American asshole who decides you're in the mood for fries versus a small salad, there is all kinds of wrong with you and you had better chug yourself some Ensure immediately in order to undo all the harm you've done to society at large, let alone yourself. That phrase...oh, it sets my spine on fire, "eating right". You should always EAT RIGHT and eat GOOD FOODS and NEVER, NEVER EAT BAD FOODS EVER. It's the Trifecta of Rage for me, in fact, when the "good" food vs. "bad" food bullshit crops up alongside "eating right". And that insidious push in the world that you can simply never, ever have ice cream/brownies/cookies/fries/burgers/pizza or else you're going to spontaneously combust and take out a litter of adorable kittens while you're at it. You don't want to kill kittens, do you? Then you had damn well better put down that cookie right now and hop on the treadmill. HOP ON IT. No, literally hop on it, because it'd be funny. And it's probably make exercise way more fun for you. I bet if you made it fun instead of a horrific drudgery and punishment for being "bad", you'd find it was a lot easier to do it and enjoy it.

Look, all I'm saying is that there are many truths in this world, and here are some of them:

Thin does not equal healthy
Fat does not equal unhealthy
You cannot look at ANYONE, be they built like me or built like a fashion model, and determine what their health status is, so STOP FUCKING DOING IT
"Naturally fat" is not bullshit and neither is "naturally thin"
There are no "good" foods and no "bad" foods
Weight Watchers -- yeah, IT IS A FUCKING DIET

The BMI being an accurate indicator of anyone's health status has never been and never will be anywhere near truth. The fashionistas in New York, Paris, and London have at least got that one right on the nosey.

Read more on this article...