Today in "Check Your Privilege".

So I was watching the CBS Evening News last night, and they closed the show out with a segment about "Iron Kids", a program that has kids as young as seven or eight beginning to train for and compete in triathlons. Of course, the distances required aren't as massive as grown-up triathlons, but the essential elements remain - you swim, you bike, you run. Of course, it was framed as a STRONG VOLLEY in the BATTLE against CHILDHOOD OBEEEEEESITY with that sniffy underlying theme of "you're a bad parent if you don't have your child training for triathlons"/"nothing's worse in the whole wide world than being fat or having fat children".

What I find endlessly interesting in all the media coverage of fat is the absolute disinterest by ANYONE that has an ass attached to a media outlet regarding the concept of privilege. The particular Iron Kids group that they profiled was a festival of white faces and undoubtedly, serious cash money, and it was presented as simply the default state for all of us. Never a moment is taken to acknowledge that a goodly part of this country doesn't exist in a lush suburb of two-parent families where there's plenty of time in one's day to make homemade meals and shop the local organic coop and the farmer's market and enroll the kids in 1,498 different activities that will all magically make one's child into a slim, attractive, fit, intelligent, courteous, clever, and delightful human. And if you bring up the concept of privilege in, let's say, an internet message board forum about how folks aren't exactly made of money, there's always the ONE person who insists they managed to be unemployed and still eat fresh organic hoo-hah and there's no reason why other people can't do the same on a limited budget...and you know, that one person always seems to be single, no kids, and living in an area that actually has access to fresh organic hoo-hah. But zie's not privileged, no sirree!

When is someone, ANYONE in the mainstream media going to summon up enough courage to fully address the gigantor issues of privilege and how it affects people in this country and around the globe? Until that day comes, I have no choice but to regard every single hand-wringing story produced by the mainstream media as, essentially, a concern troll writ large, a concern troll that doesn't really give a rat's ass about health or fitness or wellbeing but instead is really, really miffed that fat people exist. And I have to admit that the idea that my existence causes such handwringing is kind of entertaining, because it's simply fuel for my fire.

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Of course it's because of the toys.

Being a FA blogger who shies away from taking apart articles and studies because I don't feel I'm terribly good at it means that I tend to avoid the terror-filled shitpiles of "lifestyle" and "OMG OBESITY GET IT AWAY FROM YEW" articles on pretty much every single website in existence. But as I was perusing the Yahoo Entertainment page, I came across this gem:

California county bans fast-food toys to stem child obesity

I didn't think it was physically possible for me to roll my eyes so far back into my skull!



I just...I can't even construct a reaction to this nonsense that isn't laden with sarcasm and disdain, everyone. From the hand-wringing about that - that - FAT-PUSHING SLATTERN MCDONALD'S!!! to the mind-blowingly dopey "Well gosh, our kids are just so darn persuasive so therefore we are incapable of saying no to them when they demand McDonald's"...it's sincerely appalling to me that people this incapable of critical thinking and simple logic are in positions of power.

Look, I'm not a parent nor do I have any plans or desire for becoming one, but I spend plenty of time in the company of parents who have young children (ostensibly the TARGET of the FAT-DEALING EVIL THAT IS MICKEY D'S - THE D STANDS FOR DEVIL!!!!) and let me tell you, none of them have any hesitation looking at their kids and saying "yeah, fuck no" to anything from "can we have McDonald's" to "can I get on the shed and play Superman". I would suspect a vast majority of parents are just as capable. In online brawls about the evils of fast food and whatnot, the mystical Horrible Strawparent is always conjured up - you know, the one that everyone's seen giving her infant a bottle of Coke and a fistful of cotton candy (and it's always the mother, of course, NEVER the father). Horseshit stories about pretend people doing things leads to horseshit "Childhood Obesity Epidemics" and a government program that has no qualms about othering fat kids.

I'm sure I've said it before, but of course, I'll repeat myself: it never fails to astonish me how so many people are willing to roll their eyes and treat with utter cynicism so much of what is reported by the media and handed down by the government, but the second it has ANYTHING to do with fat? Holy SHIT does the logic go bye-bye. Forget about it. Even if scienterrific geniuses of the modern age, the most brilliant scientists ever to walk the earth lined up at a press conference Mercury 7-style and each stated unequivocally that the kids are okay and that good eating and physical activity is great for everyone, not just fat kids, and that fat is not a death sentence and you know, dieting doesn't work, really, and hey, while you're at it, it's none of your fucking business what anyone else's health status is and you can't tell someone's health status by looking at them and oh, let me show you our sciences, I guarantee the average person would call it all hoo-hah. Which simply goes to show you that it's really not about health and it never has been. It isn't enough to feel as good as you can - there's no point to it if you don't have the "right" body to go with it.

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