"He's so Big": Body Dysmorphia on "Project Runway"

This week's Project Runway task was to redesign the look of The Sheep Dogs. If you've watched the show, you know two things right off the bat:
-the designers don't know how to make menswear, and
-there's always an issue about "big" clients.

I like this show, even if I don't care for fashion, even if I sometimes skip the "real people" challenges because of my own body dysmorphia. It's just hurtful to see people half my size called "huge" and designers act like making clothes for them is a joke.

This time, it was extra weird, because Olivier is a menswear designer, but he acted like he can't possibly cope, because got the "big" lead singer Ewan. Now, in my eyes, Ewan is a bit chubby but by no means HUGE. Olivier, however, was completely freaked out about how BIG Ewan is and how he can't design for big people. I'll stop here to remark that even if Ewan were huge compared to most people, that would still not excuse Olivier's attitude. But Olivier's reaction speaks volumes of how he views the human body. He's Asian and very small himself, so perhaps that plays into it, but he obviously isn't even used to averagely chubby people. Last week, he complained about his client's breasts - D cup, which apparently he had never heard of - and wanted to hide them, when the client wanted to accentuate them. He obviously doesn't realize that some "big" people like showing off their body. It's ignorance rather than meanness, I think; Olivier is kind of cute and hapless and surely has no intention of offending anybody, he's just hugely body dysmorphic or something.

It's a bit vindicating that Olivier ended up going home, but not before he said twice in front of the client that "he's much bigger than the mannequin", then interviewed that "you don't have the same kind of passion, I never thought I'd be designing for plus size people".

WTF, Olivier? Aren't clothes your passion? Like material, design, pattern? Couldn't you just make a really cool rock star outfit in a slightly bigger size? Is designing for bigger people suddenly such a bummer that you can't feel anything? This felt very othering and dehumanizing. Some designers from previous seasons have acted the same way. There's always a "real people" challenge and there's always someone who acts like plus sizes are something from another planet. They obviously don't realize that some viewers are plus size and enjoy wearing nice clothes. And instead of broadening their horizons or going "OK, I can really do something good here and bedazzle the judges with my mad skillz", they just throw their arms up: "No one could do this!"

The weirdest thing is that Olivier doesn't mind saying all this out loud, completely honestly, even to the client. He has no subtlety or politeness about it, and yet he seems like he doesn't want to offend. It's like he thinks BIG people just have to take it, and how could they not realize they're so big. But Ewan, when he asked, "Are you saying I'm a big guy?" looked hurt and embarrassed. (Maybe I'm projecting, because that's how I would have felt.) The always cool Tim Gunn just stared at Olivier with a disapproving frown. He didn't say "That's no way to talk to your client", but he obviously tried to signal that with his eyes. Olivier didn't get it.

Interestingly, judge Michael Kors pointed out that Olivier has a 6'3'' client and he manages to shrink this guy, rather than make him look big and mighty. Olivier obviously thinks that anything big is bad, even tall is bad. (Aren't the models tall? Where is this all coming from?) You'd think a lead singer in a rock band may want to look big, like he's the star, and some people like big men. In fact, you might argue that a short and thin man gets more body criticism because he's "effeminate". A big and fat man is at least masculine in the size. Or that's what I hear.

I felt really bad for Ewan. He was supposed to get a cool new look for his rock star self, and he gets endless references to his weight instead. I don't know how he feels about his weight; some guys aren't that bothered about it, but I wouldn't blame him for feeling really body dysmorphic after this. At least his other designer, Bert, gave him an outfit that made him look more rock'n'roll. Bert wasn't shy about dressing a big man, but then he is fat himself (much bigger than Ewan, of course). The perfect antidote to Olivier.

You know what I'd like to see? A whole season with plus size models. Or a whole season of "real" clients, one after the other. Fat people, old people, children's wear. Something that would totally knock the designers off their balance and make them do their best work or go up in flames.

Bottom line: It's not the client's fault if he's bigger than the mannequin. That's not your excuse to not even try. Learn to make clothes for big people, and to see big people as people in the first place. You can't live your whole life in a bubble with models.

My Oh My, Stephen Fry. Part 2

I've been thinking about what I wrote on Stephen Fry's self-loathing. Was I too harsh on him?
What did I feel when I once "managed" to lose 30 pounds?

I remember thinking that I used to be horribly fat (the size I am now, or a bit smaller). I had been yanked away from the edge of a precipice. I was going to fall, but at the last minute, I was saved. Still healthy, still able to make the changes, still young; I did not have diabetes or heart disease yet, and I was not irredeemably fat yet.

Did I despise other fat people? No. I just hadn't ever considered that someone as fat as I was could possibly be happy. It didn't enter into my mind, because for me - or so I told myself - my fat was a source of misery. My eating was terrible. I felt guilty and tired and ashamed. All I did was eat candy the whole time. I never exercised. I was lazy and greedy.

And yet, with all this in my head still, I thought I was "fat acceptant". I wasn't yet involved in the blogosphere - this was in 2002-03 or so. I was annoyed when fat people would say that you can be fat and healthy; I thought it's clear as day that fat causes disease, and I was surely just about to get something. I really thought that if you weigh 200 pounds, or anywhere near it, you would get sick, end of story. It was inevitable.

It wasn't fat hate, per se; it was ignorance. Ignorance and fear of my own body and my own appetite; fear of people hating me, although my mind dressed it up as fear for my health. Quite soon, I would open my mind to fat acceptance and it would blow all my old ideas away.

So what of Mr Fry? I don't know, because I don't know him. Someone pointed out that he regained the weight recently, which doesn't surprise me, but also doesn't erase what he said before. He might be back to thinking he's bloated and horrible. Or maybe he has learned something about dieting? He would be a powerful ally to the fat acceptance movement, because he's been very vocal about gay rights and many other issues. He is an intelligent person that a lot of people listen to. That's why I wish he could join us. But it takes a powerful personal revelation to come into fat acceptance, and some people never find it. I don't judge Mr Fry for hating his body; I hate mine, it's part of our culture and, as some people mentioned, particularly lucrative for depressive people. (I suffer from depression myself, so I know something about that self-loathing and self-blame.) So perhaps I was too harsh. But I stand by my disappointment.

Does my regain and change of ideas erase what I thought before? Maybe not erase - but I hope they redeem it. I was young and dumb, a recent weight-loser; I felt like I had to believe that what I did was worth it. I wanted to create a gap between my old and new self (or, as I saw it, my original self and the fat self that wasn't really me). I don't judge myself either, in hindsight; I had gained weight very fast, had a lot of pressure to change, and was eating disordered, even if I didn't realize it then. I could easily have become bulimic (I had some urges to purge), or I could have got slim and fought hard to stay there. But I'm glad I didn't.

It's strange, the mind space of the recently dieted. I thought I had come to my senses, but I was really living in a bubble. A bubble that would soon burst when I realized the only benefits of being 30 pounds later were my Mom's constant praise - which got on my nerves - and a slightly enhanced ability to climb up stairs. I still got the flu, I still felt tired at times, and in addition, I felt guilty for eating something good and worried about regaining the weight. I soon figured out this wasn't worth it.

I found my way to an acceptance - even if I still struggle, and maybe you're never quite there. I can only hope Mr Fry also finds it. If not, well, he's only human. Maybe he'll never join us, but I hope for his sake that he learns to look in the mirror without hate and shame.

Let's Revolve!

Jamie Oliver has Twitter, and is boasting how many people and COUNTRIES - wtf? - are signing his "Food Revolution" fat hate thing. I tweeted at him, although I'm sure he won't care much:

BaltarStar Deniselle 

@jamieoliver You can't hate people for their own good. I wish you and others with influence in the media understood this.

19 seconds ago Favorite Reply Delete

BaltarStar Deniselle 

@jamieoliver Have you considered how your "food revolution" affects fat hate? Eating disorders? Fat shaming?

I know this will blow over, but it angers me how many people are drumming along, as if this is going to change everything.


Anybody else want to do this? If you have Twitter, why don't we start a revolution against the Food Revolution and let Mr Oliver know what we think? He might ignore it, but the more of us talk about it, the more people on Twitter will see what we're about.

My Oh My, Stephen Fry.

I guess the news of Stephen Fry's weight loss are not news to anyone but me. Here's an article from 2009, when he had just lost the weight. I came upon it in his autobiography a few days ago. It's the usual story - gave up sugar and white carbs, feels better exercising more, etc. I'm sure it's what many people would call inspirational. I'm deeply disappointed, though. Fry is a talented person with a lot of life experience, so I just expected a little more of him.

I don't begrudge him the healthier lifestyle, per se. If he feels good living like this, more power to him. Him being fat isn't something I personally rely on. But I thought Fry was an intelligent person who thinks deeply about things. Has he ever stopped to consider the diet culture, the pressures on people? Has he thought of how his fat fans might feel reading this stuff? He even mentions the possibility of penning a diet book. That's just what we need: another celebrity using their status to advertise a diet.

What struck me in his book, and also in this article, is the way he talks about his former body shape. It's the typical dieter's "I was disgusting" narrative. I don't necessarily blame Fry; I blame our culture for creating this as the one and only narrative for a fat person. You realize you're fat and you must do something about it, and then you do it and feel better. Your past self becomes a horrifying thing to look back on, something you will never want to be again. Maybe dieters need this to keep them going, but it's still a slap in the face for those of us who stayed fat.

I'm going to be terribly unprofessional about this, since I don't have the book on hand, and won't quote directly. But what he wrote was along the lines of "I weighed xxx pounds and was comically overweight," "I wept over this thing I had become". He mentions exact pounds and kilograms he weighed back then, implying - and surely expecting his audience to agree - that this kind of weight is unacceptable.

What about all the people who weigh as much, or more? Does he consider them all to be disgusting and unacceptable - or does he assume that no one that fat even reads the book? Does he want to create a distance from them, lift himself into a better category of person? Somehow, I'm sure he doesn't; his tone is that of a private, personal self-loathing. But here's the thing: a fat reader might read that into it, and might feel really alienated from him because of it.

I shouldn't react so angrily, I guess. I've looked in the mirror thinking the same things - what have I become, am I disgustingly fat, how do others see me? But I believe these feelings are something we must fight against. I believe there is no Point of Doing Something About It, there are only bodies of different shapes. The body has a lifespan (well, literally), and it has phases where it's softer and others where it's harder. I think we should treat these phases more gently. Less as "OMG what is this monstrous obesity" and more as "now I'm bigger, and I'm still the same person, and I'm OK".

What would I say to Mr Fry, were I to meet him? Well, I could always tweet him I guess. I probably won't. It's not my place to say, and I don't want to come off as a fanatic, and and. Maybe I should say something though. Maybe I should say: you forgot about your roots. You were one of us, and now you're there saying how disgusting you were. That hurts us. We're already told every day that we are disgusting. We needed more from you.

Scared.

Edit: I recommend that anyone struggling with the same feelings read the comments to this entry. I got so many words of encouragement, it made me feel much more at ease with what's going on. 

It's been a week since I threw out my scale. I've been eating freely, stocking up on food, and I've given up all the rules I was taught about eating. Don't have candy and cookies in the house; don't eat every time you feel like it; don't buy something on an impulse. Above all, don't waste food. I've given up on all of that.

The first few days, I had the feeling of a huge weight lifting off me. I felt like I was floating on air, being accepted for who I was. My mind was free to work on what it wanted to; the thought cycles were gone and I felt free and... alive. But the high has gone out somewhat by now. I think I'm giving into the worries and fears a little bit. A part of me is very impatient to eat "normally" and be thrifty and stop this madness. A part of me thinks this is all bullshit and regrets giving up the scale, because I feel like I've gone too long without and need the reassurance. I miss that feeling of control, even if it never once helped me feel better.

Is it normal that I'm still overeating after a week? My appetite confuses me. I had expected some overindulgence on the first couple of days, but still? I get this urge to eat everything all at once and it feels suffocating to be full and know there are more treats than I can possibly eat. I thought the cravings were supposed to stop. When do they stop? Do I just crave until the day I finally no longer question my right to eat? Or maybe cravings are OK?

I'm quite sure I've gained weight, which makes me, frankly, a little bit miserable. On the plus side, I'm at least less miserable than I used to be, because I don't have a scale to stand on over and over, nor am I staring in the mirror all the time. I'm trying to focus on other things, so my mind is somewhat occupied by other things, and the body shifts out of focus. But there's a great temptation to fall into the pit of "I'm so fat and all I do is eat".


I do worry about gaining weight endlessly until I literally blow up. I know it's probably impossible, and I haven't been able to empty my fridge since I started stocking up.

Should it matter how much weight I gain and how much food I eat? What if I haven't even gained weight? Maybe I'm just imagining it, because I fear losing control. But my pants are tight on me, so I suppose I'm not imagining things. I feel like sending people before and after photos and verifying if I've gained weight, in lieu of having a scale. My preoccupation with how big I actually am is a bit worrying. I may have been deluding myself about it before. Until now, I haven't realized how much I really think about it, like my whole identity comes from my size.

I just feel like my body's slipping from my fingers, falling apart like I'm made of sand. I've lost all control. I'm scared to death.

Calm Down, We Can ALL Be Eating Disordered

Edit: The commenter apologized in the previous post, so you can go read her response there. I think I'll keep the post up, because it's so symptomatic of how people respond to fat people with eating disorders, but there's no ongoing fight or grudge going on here. We all lash out sometimes.

"Anonymous said...
wow you must've looked hilarious buying four chocolate bars. disgusting. Four is so unnecessary. and bullSHIT you have an eating disorder, unless its binge eating. You insult me, and others, who actually fear calories and would be suicidal at a third your size."

This is a comment I got to my previous post, where I discussed throwing out the scale and buying lots of food so I can eat what I want. I did this as a gesture of healing from what I call an eating disorder, although I don't have a diagnosis or more precise name for it. I just feel miserable and guilty about my eating habits, think about my weight all the time, weigh myself too often, get anxiety attacks over fat hate, etc. etc. My friend Robyn, who has suffered from anorexia, was the one to tell me I need to kill it dead. So today, obviously another anorexic tells me I insult her by thinking I have a problem.

I could have deleted it as a flame, but I kept it and responded. It's obviously meant to be both humiliating and insulting - drawing attention to my size, exaggerating it (a third my size? Bwah), using bully tactics, denying my right to name my problem. This tells me the person felt very mad and threatened when she read my post.

As I mentioned, I don't have a diagnosis. That means I'm not taking anyone's bed or place in therapy. I'm naming my problem and fighting against it, with the help of my boyfriend and closest friends. If I saw a doctor and told them everything I told Robyn, they may diagnose me, or they may just conclude that I need to eat less. Even if a doctor gave me a diagnosis, I probably couldn't expect for a lot of sympathy or support in healing; a lot of people would question the diagnosis and whether it's "a real eating disorder". Atypical eating disorders - or even binge eating disorder/compulsive eating - are very little known and there's very little help available. And OK, let's say I technically don't have an eating disorder (yet); it's still a serious problem that I have these thought patterns and guilt feelings. I need to ease my pressure or it will really depress me. In fact, I'm already on antidepressants.

Here's the big question: Why should it INSULT someone if I think I have an eating disorder? It helps me conceptualize the problem and be determined to change it. If I need to see the problem as a separate creature that I need to destroy, what's it to you?

I've thought of it a lot and here's my conclusion: the commenter is angry because she does not want to be lumped together with a fatty. If a fat person can have an eating disorder, then the concept of eating disorders is tarnished with fat and gluttony, and it makes her anorexia look like a joke. This is sad, but it's just the eating disorder speaking. My disorder is different in nature, but it has similar thought patterns. For instance, I was pretty angry at first when I read about HAES and fat people who exercise. "They're bringing the slim world's antics into the fat world! It will be tainted!" It's really just the same thing turned around.

The sad part is, this would pretty much be my parents' reaction, without the whole "you insult me because I have a REAL problem". I had bulimia symptoms at ages 15 and 18; both times, my mother told me I do not have an eating disorder and I need to stop dramatizing. "We all binge," she said, as if our family sits around eating until we throw up. This is pretty much how our culture deals with a fat girl who feels she has a problem. In a way, fat people are seen as unhealthy; in another way, we're seen as "healthy", as in "you look healthy". If you look healthy, how can you be sick inside?

Of course, I share this problem with all the normalweight people with eating disorders. If you're not critically skinny, people will usually not see you as sick. Normalweight is the ideal, so how could someone at that size be sick? As an added bonus, a fat person is expected to think and behave in eating disordered ways. We should be counting the calories of every bite. We should be overexercising. We should hate our bodies and consider them unattractive. It's understandable if we sit around thinking about the weight all the time; that just means we have a problem and have to do something about it.

It's sad that sometimes, people who could understand and support each other are unable to do so, because the disorder does just that. Robyn isn't controlled by her disorder anymore, so she can see we're not that different. In this comment above, I just see the disorder creature spitting and growling at me. I recognize its hideous face. That's why it's hard to be mad at the commenter, even if her words did hurt; I'm still vulnerable and ashamed of myself. But it helps to know where it's coming from.

These are complex issues and it's always hard to talk about such a topic without someone else's pain crashing into your own. I hope everyone struggling with eating disorders, diagnosed or unrecognized, will get help and support from someone.

I Am Awesome!

I THREW OUT MY SCALE LIKE A BOSS!!!

I threw out that motherfucking death machine in an act of guerilla warfare.
...Um, Robyn suggested looking at it in war terms, because fighting against an eating disorder is like facing a war machine.

So I did it. It was really hard. I was scared and angry. I shook and felt sick and coddled the scale to my chest before throwing it out. But I was able to do it.

For the first time in 14 years, I feel like I'm on top of the weight anxiety. I'm controlling it, it's not controlling me.

I've never had a diagnosis and I still don't. I don't know if I technically fill the requirements of an eating disorder. But as Robyn said, "Do you need a diagnosis to know you feel terrible about eating, which you need to do to live?"
I guess I don't.

I just needed someone's permission to throw out the scale, because people don't usually acknowledge that a fat girl could have an eating disorder. That it might be better to NOT watch your weight and what you eat.
That maybe sometimes, what a fat girl needs is MORE FREEDOM and less guilt, not the other way around.

So I went to the store today, like a boss, and I bought two packs of Ben&Jerry's Coconutterly Fair. I bought marshmallows, four chocolate bars, a frozen pizza, mayonnaise and white bread, Parmese ham, chicken Kiev with blue cheese potatoes. I'm just going to try the "Fat is a Feminist Issue" method: eating exactly what I feel like, stocking up food home so it's always available when I crave it. Just eating.

There's one rule though: no guilt. Food disappears once it goes in my mouth. No contemplating afterwards on how many calories, what I should ahve eaten instead, whether I've had too many treats on that day. No thoughts on good and bad foods. JUST EATING.
Like a boss.

Micro Fatressions

I have started a Tumblr called Micro Fatgressions. The idea comes from migro aggressions, which also have a Tumblr dedicated to them.

A migro aggression is a small, annoying comment, often said in the guise of a joke. It's something that you can't really help, but that stays under your skin. If you should react, you'll be told "Lighten up" or "You're so sensitive".

Do you get comments about your size? Any pent-up feelings of frustration and anger for your loved ones, friends, coworkers? Don't hesitate to submit! No comment is too minor. (You can submit by clicking "vent fatgressions here". Oh, I apparently haven't decided yet if it's "fatressions" or "fatgressions". Any opinions?)

It has fat in the title, but comments about thinness are also welcome. It's still about fat if it's about the absence thereof.

All of these so far are from me, and I'm really beginning to notice how annoying my Mom is with this...

Exercise: It's Never Enough

I made the mistake of reading a health-related article in the mass media. It just seemed too appealing. On the cover of the latest Suomen Kuvalehti, there's a non-trim (but not fat either) man's belly strapped with drinking bottles. The man is obviously in motion. The caption reads: "Working for Nothing - Exercise the Reason behind Lack of Fitness?"  (translation mine) This is, of course, a totally misleading title that has nothing to do with the content. If you're triggered by expert scorn, stop reading here.

I'll admit that I cherry-pick. I only read health-related articles when they seem like they're going to refute something we all "know for a fact"(tm). I already know all the basic claims against fatness and a sedentary lifestyle, so I don't think I'll become ignorant from not reading every single article reiterating these "facts". I suppose I'm guilty of only reading things that strengthen my own conviction and skipping other things, but so is everyone who ever skimmed thru a fat acceptance blog and left a comment saying "go join a gym". So I'm not going to feel too bad.

The article begins with a recap of statistics about how much Finnish people supposedly exercise; apparently surprisingly many people exercise daily. The question is: why do we still have so much diabetes, obesity, blablabla, if people are exercising more than before? The answer, according to this article, is "slacking": going for a walk but at a leisurely pace, so you talk more than you walk; or skipping the hardest parts of the workout; or, god forbid, going to the gym but parking your car as close to the entrance as possible.

So, as the UKK Institute expert says, it's not enough to just do the minimum amount of exercise (30 minutes a day plus 45 minutes three times a week). It has to be strenuous exercise. It has to be sweatty and tough and and and. So it's not that people don't exercise, it's that the workout isn't good enough. If it were good enough, the people would be slimmer, and healthier, and less diabetic. "Excess weight" is mentioned among diseases like high cholesterol and diabetes; there is no admission that sometimes, people who exercise a lot are still fat. There's a calculation of what a diabetic costs society. Many illustrious examples follow, and the journalist is obviously ridiculing people who think they're so good for doing just a little exercise here and there.

Then, for a little sidestep, we are offered the idea that perhaps health education can lead to resistance and health moralizing may offend and annoy people. This, however, is not really looked into, it's merely mentioned. The expert is never called into question. In fact, it's hard to tell how much of the article is the journalist's own ideas and how much is paraphrased from the expert.

I'm not here to refute the health effects of exercise, given that it seems to be the one thing all experts can agree on. So let's agree that exercise is a good thing for your health, and a natural thing. But I hate the tone of the piece and the whole underlying idea:  that there's a "right way" and "wrong way" to take care of your health, and even when people try to take care of themselves, they can be told off for being slackers.

Ever since my childhood, health articles have had this impact on me: I begin to feel guilty in an irremeedable way. I do actually walk in my everyday life, and I've never thought I'm in particularly good shape, so there was no "OMG I've been doing it wrong" awakening. What I feel is sadness and inferiority: even if I walk to work, and to the store, it's not good enough if it's not strenuous. It's precisely strenuous exercise that makes me pant and sweat that I've always hated. Yes, I've tried the exercycle, and brisk walking, and cycling. I do enjoy some aspects of all of these, but I've never been able to make them a habit. I'll ignore the obvious, yet judgemental idea that I may just be lazy. Maybe I am; but I work damn hard mentally, so I suppose you can't have everything. Whatever the reason, exercise has always been the thing that I just can't do.

So I was happy when there was this "at least move 30 minutes a day" thing. I felt like I can do this- hey, I'm already doing this! It made me more positively disposed to exercise, and probably made me do a bit more walking than I had previously done. So now it's all "that's not enough"?


I thought I was over this by now, but I'm not. I can't even look at the article again to refer to the journalist and expert by name, and I do apologize. The truth is, I was terribly depressed by the piece. I don't think my guilt stems from a genuine remorse for "living wrong". It's just the shame of never being quite good enough, no matter how much you want to live healthier. This feeling is also the reason why I've never made much of an effort. It just hurts too much to be told you did something, but it wasn't enough because you're not an athlete.

The article mentions different attitudes on exercise. Some people crave it, others abhor it. There is no pondering on why this might be so, if it's so very natural for humans, as a species, to be on the move. I think this is the most interesting question: why do we strive to move less? Perhaps we're not all meant to exercise equal amounts. Perhaps we aren't all meant to be fit. I don't know. I don't have any particular theory on this, I just wish the journalist had tackled this question. It would have been nice to have some kind of thought behind the article, but as it is, it just seems to be a mouthpiece for experts who are disappointed in us. Because we want to do something, but really we're just lazy.

Maybe I should decide that what I'm doing now is enough and I'll never have to Have Exercise (tm), no matter what the experts say. That is the only way I can be happy with myself, to be honest. I don't know if it's self-deception... Well, I suppose it isn't, because I'm not denying anything, just allowing myself to be sedentary. Maybe it's OK.

So the article had the opposite effect on me than it perhaps should have had. But hey, it was nice to see the non-fit guy's belly on the cover. He's hot.

In Which I Can't Let Go of Ian McEwan's "Solar"

Mr McEwan, your book is bad and you should feel bad.

Apparently, some people found Solar hi-la-ri-ous because of all the "fatty eats a lot" stuff. It's so ironic, you see. Michael Wood from the Huffington Post writes:

We can't miss the relish in the writing here, the pileup of horrible detail; but it's worth pausing over the relish's double focus: Beard is wallowing in his own gluttony and recklessness, while McEwan's narrator is writing with the mesmerized horror of a much thinner person. This sort of disjunction is essential to the novel's irony, allows us our complex laughter, and means that McEwan, or his narrator, can treat Beard without sympathy and without condemnation. 

(It's actually a very nice, complex review, if you're interested in reading more about the novel. But I must take opposition with this bit. I'm obviously not part of the "us".) 

First of all, there's nothing complex about laughter at fat people. Fat jokes have been skinned to the bone; there is nothing left but "fatty like to eat haha". It's really elementary school humor dressed up as intellectual fiction with some clever word choices. Secondly, this is exactly why I felt so alienated while reading it. Looking at the first chapter, I was hoping to see a realistically depicted, self-aware fat person, but then all the gluttony comes in and ruins it. It's just not very realistic, and we're obviously meant to see the fat person as an Other. While I may make excuses - he's a man, he's older than me, he drinks so much, etc. - I can't escape the fact that Beard has the same amount of "excess weight" that I have. So McEwan might actually be writing about me, among other people. And he imagines that his intellectual readers are going to be slim.

I did come to realize, though, that the mesmerized horror might actually not be so far off from a fat person's inner dialogue. Most of us have that voice inside of us, even those who are fat acceptant. The voice says, "OMG you're getting so HUGE! Will you stop eating so much!" or perhaps "Oh, eating a chocolate bar, are we? No wonder you're so fat." If you're a fat person and you eat anything, but especially specific "fatty foods" like bacon, chocolate, chips, etc. (which Beard also indulges in), you're bound to hear a voice inside you that says you really shouldn't. That's what this culture does to us. Exploring that voice might have been interesting, but McEwan doesn't bother to do that.

The problem with Solar is that it seems to suggest this is the voice of reason, not internalized fat hatred talking. This is, of course, what most people already think. Should I expect McEwan to rise above such cultural norms? Well, I'll say yes - he wrote Atonement, On Chesil Beach and many other beautiful novels where he really went into the characters' heads, even if these characters are women from another time. But apparently he can't afford such empathy and humanity with fat people.

I also disagree that the book is without condemnation. Bearing in mind that Beard drives an SUV (because he can't fit into other cars),  flies planes constantly, and eats primarily meat, McEwan might even be suggesting that fat people are particularly guilty of ecological "crimes" that cause CO2 emissions. Beard never once contemplates on this. When it comes to his body, even if Beard is aware of the fatness, he is also in deep denial about how bad things are. When the doctor gives his list of predictions, we're meant to think it's time for Beard to wake up - and yet he lapses into a blissful feeling of freedom as soon as he leaves the doctor's office. The ending of the book is left open, but most likely he has a heart attack and dies. It's alluded to in no uncertain terms. It may also be seen as a final judgement or punishment for his indulgence. 

In my view, the book would be a lot more powerful if Beard went on his big diet, lost all the weight, and became physically fit but was still a really disgusting human being. That might actually be a lot more current and deep-thought: poking fun at the fitness culture and people's obsession with their bodies; showing that someone who has "will power" over their body is not always a good person in other ways.

After writing the previous post, I've also thought of Battlestar Galactica and my favorite character, Gaius Baltar. Baltar is loathsome in many ways: cowardly, selfish, weak, arrogant, often rude. He has a lot in common with Beard in these ways. Interestingly, however, he is not fat. He is short, like Beard, and this might be an instance of lookism (or heightism?) in both stories. But Baltar was, throughout most of the seasons, quite thin. He indulged in smoking, drinking, women, and arrogance, but not in food. I never really thought of this before, but I like that. What if he had been fat? Would he have been even more irredeemable in some people's eyes? He is already loathed by many fans, but I love him. It might be because the writer Ron D. Moore and the actor James Callis decided to give him some humanity. Some empathy, a lot of guilt, a position as a pawn. There's a lot of humanity to his weakness.

Well, now I digress into my fandoms. My point was going to be this: if you have anti-hero character, and you wish people to care about it, you need to give him something we can relate to. Nobody is completely evil, and if you draw your protagonist that way, you're making a caricature, not a character. Beard is indulgent, selfish, despises most people, and doesn't even care about his own child. As he is the most central character, that soon begins to grate. On topic: Jason Cowley with The Guardian finds the protagonist one-dimensional. Tell me about it. 

It was always going to be high risk, wagering so much on having as your central character a comic grotesque so loathsome and self-pitying, with thoughts mostly so banal, and then leaving the reader trapped, unrelieved, in his company for nearly 300 pages.

I must say, this description is much closer to my feelings than the "complex laughter" quote above.

McEwan won a humor literature prize for Solar. He bought a pig and named it after the protagonist. How deliciously ironic.

This whole has angered me so much that I have decided to make an art project out of it. I decided to cut up the book and place some of the words on my fat body. I'm not sure if McEwan cares - in fact, I'm quite sure he doesn't - but the blubber wants to talk back. And it will.

Some preliminary ideas (my camera doesn't handle small text very well, sadly):

(These are not meant to be erotic pictures, more like feminist art. So I hope you don't mind the nudity.)

Fat Hate in a Time of Climate Change: Ian McEwan's "Solar"

I love Ian McEwan. Atonement is one of my favorite books ever, and I re-read Solid Geometry (from First Love, Last Rites) about once a year to enjoy a great, if bleak, surrealist fantasy. McEwan's writing is often dark and shows humanity and life in a pretty grim light. But in his new book, Solar, this is particularly pronounced, and I'm sorry to say, exaggerated. If you're going to write about an anti-hero, you should at least give him some human moments. Gaius Baltar on Battlestar Galactica is a good example: he's cowardly, weak, selfish, sometimes loathsome, but he does have some skill for empathy and redeeming moments. McEwan doesn't afford Michael Beard anything redeeming at all. His protagonist is, I wouldn't even say anti-hero, just a plain old villain. He is a Nobel laureate working for alternative energy sources, even if he doesn't truly care about saving the planet. He is a complete douchebag: lazy, selfish, uninterested in basically anything, indulgent and perhaps a complete narcissist. He fails to love his women and even his own child. When his character flaws bring him problems, he refuses to acknowledge it was his fault. Til the last minute, he denies any problems and just goes on as before.

He is also increasingly fat. This is used as shorthand for the usual character flaws: sloth, gluttony, lack of self-control, complete negligence of one's health. It starts off fine, with him gaining a little weight and resolving to lose some - he is at least aware of it - but then, as the years go by, he gets fatter and fatter, eats more and more, and is just plain out of control. This makes me mad.

To be perfectly honest, I liked it at first, because I have a weight-gain fetish. It's really very sexy to me to read about someone's wanton weight gaining. But the more I think about it, the more it troubles me. Obviously we're meant to hate Beard. Many online reviews mention his eating habits as "disgusting". He eats enormous amounts of food, basically nothing but meat, butter, cheese, chips, chocolate, and the like. He hates salad (of course!), and even if he vows to start a healthier life, he never does. He is also an unwitting alcoholic, constantly drinking gin and scotch.

So that's my first issue with this book: I feel like I'm supposed to find him irredeemable, inhumanely gross and disgusting, but I don't. I can relate to his lifestyle. I don't eat anywhere near as much, but it's human to eat like that. He's being offered food everywhere; it's natural for human beings to crave food when it's presented to them on a plane or at a conference. It's normal to eat pancakes and bacon when you're  on a trip to America. It's normal to crave chips and make them a daily habit. If you gain weight, it's normal for your appetite to increase, because you need more calories just to get around. And even if I'm not an addict, I find even the alcoholism relatable. It's a disease, not something I'm going to despise people for. Beard could even suffer from binge eating disorder, considering his guilt over his eating habits and the constant inability to stop himself. But I have a feeling that's not where McEwan is going. I'm sure most readers will find him irredeemable, comical, and pathetic. But what about his fat readers? What about the readers who perhaps do eat like this? Do we not exist?

The second issue is with the details. This is a difficult issue, because not everyone will feel the same weight in the same way, but it really reads like "fat is a death sentence" and "no fat person could possibly be comfortable in their own skin". The book is divided into three parts: 2000, 2005, and 2009. I'll leave out the rest of the plot, but in 2000, Beard is 15 pounds overweight and his weight is still a side issue; in 2005, he is 35 pounds overweight, tired and achy, and eats and drinks constantly; in 2009, he is 65 pounds overweight and his heart and liver are failing. He's eating even more than before, has trouble breathing and walking.

I began to wonder at some point if McEwan did his research for this, specifically the number of pounds. In the first chapter, Beard is described as "human blubber" (p. 7) (at least in his own eyes); he has trouble getting out of a low-riding car and bending over. When I got to "He was fifteen pounds overweight. Act now or die early" (p.101), I basically exclaimed, "A measly fifteen pounds?!" I had expected him to be at least forty pounds overweight, what with all the references to his girth. I might have the wrong idea of male bodies; maybe fifteen pounds feels like more when it's all on the waist. But still, it just seems off to me.

I'll quote form the 2009 section and a doctor's visit. This is where it really gets ugly.

"It was true, the doctor did not lecture or moralize, but he compensated with a disengaged, insulting frankness. With each instance, each looming physical catastrophe, the wise turtle head protruded a little further and he gently tapped his own palm with a pencil. No one, he said, not even Beard, would choose to walk around with a body like Beard's." (p. 329)

Stopping here for a minute just to say - is this not a judgement? Also, we're probably meant to think that his hate of doctors' judgements is simply a form of denial. He should be ashamed and humiliated and berated for his lifestyle.

"He was carrying an extra sixty-five pounds, the equivalent of a combat infantry-man's full pack.  His knees and ankles were swollen from the weight, osteoarthritis was a growing possibility, his liver was enlarged, blood pressure was up again and there was a growing risk of congestive heart failure. His bad cholesterol was high, even by English standards. He was clearly experiencing breathing difficulties, he stood a decent chance of diabetes mellitus as well as advancing the likelihood of prostate and kidney cancer and thrombosis. His one piece of luck - luck, Beard observed, not virtue - was that he was not addicted to cigarettes, otherwise he might already be dead." (p.329-330) 

OMG 65 pounds! OMG SIXTY-FIVE POUNDS. It must sound like a huge load to McEwan, but I'm at about 65 pounds overweight and.. I feel fine? I mean, sometimes my knees do ache, but I have no heart and liver trouble, I don't have trouble breathing, and in general feel fine. The complete physical decay described here seems pretty exaggerated. In addition, Beard is an alcoholic, completely sedentary, has a lot of stress, travels a lot, and is sixty-two. All of these factors are going to play into it. But I get the feeling the book is telling us that his OMG GLUTTONY IS KILLING HIM and he doesn't even CARE.

As for the infantryman's pack? It's not exactly scientific to make such an analogy. Obviously, any extra weight is an extra strain on your system, IF we assume that there's a definite point where it becomes "extra". If sixty-five pounds "overweight" is the smallest a person can be, it might actually be the right weight for their bodies. Weight is individual. That said, I realize a doctor might well not share these views, and might say that about the pack.

"As he listened to Parks enumarate his possible futures, he decided not to mention his recent acquisition of a classical symptom: a feeling of tightness around his chest. It would only make him appear even more foolish and doomed. Nor could he admit that he didn't have it in him to eat and drink less, that exercise was a fantasy. He could not command his body to do it, he had no will for it." (p. 330) 

It's all about willpower, y'all! He may want to do it, but he's too weak to even try. He might be dying, but he's not going to admit it to his doctor, because he's too proud or something. I'm not sure how to read this. Maybe we're meant to think he deserves his just desserts - pun intended - and should die from a heart attack right now, because his lifestyle is so omg bad? Or are we to see it as an endearing human frailty, this pride and inability to admit to his failing health? I have a feeling we're not. 

Throughout the book, his weight is a hindrance to him and feels like a huge burden. I can't really argue that it's an unrealistic depiction, because some men might beg to differ. Some women way bigger than me can dance all night and have no knee problems; some women way smaller have high blood pressure and feel tired. Weight affects people differently. But I'd still say that this is a lot of scare tactics. Beard's whole life is, at this point, falling apart; his career and relationships are feeling the strain of his flaws, and so is his body. He also has melanoma (how ironic, a sun-related ailment on a scientist working on solar systems!). His out-of-control eating is just one instance of his flawed nature, his inability to be good. It's very disappointing, because McEwan is an intelligent writer. It's lazy thinking, really.

In his future books, perhaps McEwan will explore some other deliciously bad characters. Like a really hysterical woman! Or a fanatic Christian who hates all non-Christians! Or a lazy Mexican, or flamboyant nymphomaniac homosexual... The opportunities are endless! I see a great future for him as a comedy writer.

TV Teens and Fat: "The Facts of Life"

When I feel depressed, I like to unwind with some good wholesome family fun. Well, maybe not "good" in the same sense as, say, The Sopranos is a good show. More like mediocre, average, non-offensive stuff. Life gets complex, and I want something soothing that tells me it's manageable.

I discovered Facts of Life a few nights ago on Youtube whilst looking for cheesy family show theme songs. It's cheesy, but not the worst of the lot; I'd say much better than the annoying Full House that seems to be more about the grown ups than the kids. Anyhow, I'm hooked. It makes me feel joyful to watch it. I also enjoy the fact that the show is over and I can check out any season I like, seeing their changes over the years.

I came upon this video where three of the main actors discuss the show briefly, years later. They mention weight, and it makes me sad.



Lisa Whelchel, who played the "pretty girl", was pressured to stay thin, and she seems to accept this as a fact of the job:

"That was their job. They hired me to play a certain role, and I was outgrowing that role. They tried to provide  me with a nutritionist and trainer, things I would LOOVE now, but I was sixteen and didn't quite appreciate it." 

I'm not liking what she says here. Maybe I'm jumping into conclusions, but isn't she saying that they had every right to ask her to lose weight, and that she was silly and stubborn enough to be against it? It's like she realizes now how important skinniness is and wishes someone would give her a free nutritionist and trainer. If that's what she means, I feel bad for her. Not surprised, really, if this is the pressure she grew up with, but sad that she has discovered the "truth" of skinniness instead of the joy of self-acceptance.

It's kind of tragic that she had to fit in the mold of "Blair" growing up, instead of being Lisa. I question the need for Blair's character to stay the same. If she was outgrowing the role, maybe they should have realized the show needs to end or the character could actually change and grow. Wasn't the show all about growing up and learning about life? I find Blair pretty annoying, watching the clips, and feel like a lot more could have been done with her. Apparently the writers had no such ambitions. People want pretty rich bitch, they should get pretty rich bitch.

Interestingly, the "fat" girl Mindy Cohn was told to gain weight one year when she had been "getting active". That's almost as bad as what they did with Whelchel. If she was growing up and getting leaner, naturally and of her own accord, couldn't they let her do that? Some fat girls grow up to be slim girls and vice versa. Maybe it would have been positive to show that to teenage girls watching the show? Not to mention what it must do to a girl's self esteem to be "the fat girl" in a show. Granted, judging by the clips I saw, Natalie was fairly positively depicted and her weight wasn't much of an issue. But the underlying idea of being "the fat one" - plus the comments she must have gotten from viewers - might easily be harmful. If I had had that over my head as a kid, I would have hated myself.

But then - I did hate myself. I wasn't shown in millions of homes, but I wasn't free. I wasn't allowed to have my baby fat, my teenage chubbiness, or later my grown-up fatness in peace. Nor was anyone else. There were mothers, gym teachers and school nurses; there were magazine doctors giving out diet advice. I remember us worrying about being "overweight". Someone was always on a diet, and there was much jiggling and tummy-flattening in front of the mirrors. The "I'm fat" - "No, you're thin, I'm the one who's fat!" conversations were constant. It would have been a bit weird and unacceptable to NOT hate our body.

In fact, you know what I find unrealistic about teen girl shows? That they talk so little about dieting. There may be a very special episode about eating disorders, where everyone's secret self-loathing is revealed, but the rest of the time, they're preoccupied by other things entirely. I wish it really were like that: weight being one of life's issues, but not the major one that looms behind everything else.

Belly Appreciation Pix.

I posted these photos on my Tumblr today. It was really very scary. I lost one follower over this. My boyfriend supported me and posted sweet comments, though, and that felt good. I didn't post the pictures thinking "I'm so hot and I wanna get compliments". I did it to hopefully show some body diversity and positivity. I also did it because I feared it.

The first one is taken with my cell phone cam, and the others with my webcam - same light and clothing. You can tell the difference. It's hard to position yourself so that you get a picture of your full belly, so none of them shows my face. It wasn't meant to be a "headless fatty" thing.

My belly is jiggly and soft, yet somewhat firm. When I gain weight, it always seems to go there first. My fat fetish seems very belly-focused - I love fat bellies on everyone but myself. My own makes me vaguely horrified. This is probably a normal reaction to your own body, given our culture. There are lots of negative messages about belly fat, and I often feel like people are scared of liking a belly, lest it kills you in the end. But it shouldn't be that way. You shouldn't be scared of your own flesh and bone. I want to feel calm about my belly, even if there are risks. There are risks to every body type and lifestyle. That shouldn't be a reason to hate your figure.

Reading about others' thoughts and looking at their pictures, I've gained some kind of respect for my belly. When you look at your own, it always feels OMG HUGE AND HORRIBLE, but maybe that's just the way we're conditioned to think. Other people's bellies look natural and beautiful, even if they're bigger than mine. I like fat, and I enjoy seeing fat bellies, but my own still kind of scres me. That's why I'm posting pictures of it, to make it more real and also less scary for myself.

So there it is.

Conflicted.

Very crappy photo= me standing on a scale. For those who use lb’s, it’s about 200 pounds. Not that it really 

matters. 

Once again, I’m in a place where I feel like dieting (no, not crash dieting, just “eating less and exercising”). No one can really help me, because I have to find my own way in this issue. It’s hard. The majority opinion is that I should absolutely do something about it, because a lot of it is visceral (belly) fat, and my BMI is 35, and it’s dangerous. The minority opinion is that I would just gain the weight back, and fat isn’t as dangerous as people like to think, and I should aim for self-acceptance instead. 

I’ve thought about this long and hard, many times, for about the last 12 years. I always end up leaning on the fat acceptance view. It’s the more critical one, for one thing. People like to straw man it as: “I wanna eat so I’ll accept my fat and just say lalalala I’m not listening when someone says it’s dangerous.” This is very far from the deep-

thought, critical blogs I’ve read.

The people who lost weight seem to gain it back in almost all cases. I know one or two people who lost weight and kept it all off. One of the most striking yo-yo examples is my own Dad. He has been battling his weight for 20 years, going on all kinds of healthy eating plans and exercising. He’s now fatter than ever and diabetic. My family thinks it’s because he eats too much. I have to wonder, if he would be smaller, had he not dieted. Or maybe he would be the same size either way, considering that his father got fat at the same age and was also diabetic. 

Maybe the two things are connected?

Furthermore, my mental health should come first. I have been struggling with depression for two years now, and I need to keep my head above the water. I had some eating disorder symptoms when I was young, and was obsessed with weight for so long, and I don’t want to go back into that mindset. I’m battling a really powerful self-loathing, not to sound dramatic. I worry about that. Maybe that, more than anything else, is the reason I’m leaning on fat acceptance. I’m not sure if I could just “diet sensibly”. I worry that I could not. 

Or maybe the biggest question is: would I lose something important of myself and my power and courage? Would I lose the part of me that could inspire other people? Would I lose my way? 

Why do I always go back into fear mode? Is it just an emotional response, perhaps a logical/”common sense” reasoning for wanting to take the easy way out? Maybe I just don’t want to believe that fat acceptance is true, or right for me, because it scares me to always be thought in the wrong. It scares me to be the glutton in anybody’s eyes, or to be the ugly one, or just damn ignorant. The last one stings the worst, because I do want people to see me as intelligent and critical. 

Or maybe it’s just reasonable concern about my real health risks. In which case, if I can’t diet, I will have to learn to live with it. I can always comfort myself with the knowledge that dieting might make me fatter in the long run, thus increasing the risks. 

Arghhh brain is fuming must stop thinking now

Heal the World? Nah, Let's just Blame the Parents.

Discussions on childhood obesity tend to run in predictable ways. One of the things I hate most about them is how they ignore the societal issues behind eating fast food.

A recent example is an article found in the Pundit, written by Deborah Coddington and titled "Fight Obesity - Nationalise the Dairies!" Apparently the title is a cynical one, and her main concern here is that nationalizing anything is terrible and everything is up to the individual's own choices. Obviously, she feels she is the voice of reason in suggesting something as novel as - parents being responsible for their children's food choices. Wow. This sounds common sense and even smart, if you look at it on the surface level. Which is why I feel like writing about it and breaking down why it's NOT smart at all.

The Secondary Principals' Association of New Zealand (Spanz) – no less – wants restrictions on what dairies near schools can sell during certain hours.
We're talking about food here, folks – possibly fizzy drinks, chippies, pies, lollies, ice creams. Stuff that, if eaten sensibly, in moderation, will not do you any harm at all.

"Sensibly", "in moderation", being the operative words here. Because we all have the same idea of what they mean, and because we all know fatties do not eat moderately. Mind you, I give her credit for saying that it's OK to eat these foods. Or I would, if she didn't undo her own point later by suggesting that parents not give their children money for this type of food.

Then comes the big slap in the face at poor people:

Not so poor, though, that they can't afford to buy the odd pie or ten.

Poor people! They're not really poor, they just waste all their money on junk food. That's why they're so fat. This is where the class stuff comes in and Coddington gleefully and almost proudly glosses all over it. In most countries, junk food really is cheaper than "healthy" food. Many poor people actually have to work long hours at their low-paid jobs, sometimes work two or three jobs to support their families. The fact that they don't have the time or money to prepare nutritious meals is actually completely natural. It's an inevitable fact enforced by their lives and their poverty. In other words, it's not a choice in all cases. If you had to feed a family of five with 20 bucks a day, what would you buy? Five veggies a day or Hamburger Helper? Rich people do have the choice, because they can choose to stop at the most expensive supermarkets, buy the best produce available, and even hire someone to cook for them. It's easy for them to make snide remarks about the poor eating habits of poor people (pun intended), but it would be harder to actually discuss or, god forbid, attempt to change the economic reality of their society.

Now follows the predictable parents-are-at-fault speech.

How about this idea? Parents take some responsibility for their offsprings' health. They don't give them any money and instead, put two pieces of bread together with some vegemite in between? That's novel. Add an apple, a bottle of water, and make them walk to school.

Most articles on childhood obesity contain this idea in some form. What Coddington is essentially doing is releasing dairies and fast food outlets of all responsibility. If they market fast food for children, there's nothing we can - or should - do about that. Companies should be allowed to be free! What is this, Soviet Russia?

Blaming the parents is actually the easy way out. It sounds smart enough and appeals to what people already think, but the real messages is that society cannot, will not, change for you. It is always the individuals who must change. Instead of raising wages and benefits, or making fresh produce more available near schools and poor areas, or even introducing free school meals - let's make the parents feel guilty and put vegemite sandwiches in their kids' lunch boxes. Problem solved! (I feel like I should mention that white bread and vegemite isn't actually the most nutritious meal either. In fact, I might argue that children get more nutrition out a burger meal. But I don't want to start a big nutritional flamewar.)

I'd like to point out that I don't think any of these things would necessarily decrease childhood obesity. In fact, I should be putting "obesity" into quotation marks, because it's impossible to really measure how fat children are without seeing them. And even if you do see a fat child, it might do them no good to interfere. Children are growing, their bodies change constantly, and most kids I've known have been chubby, skinny, and everything in between before they're 13. I question how this is going to be harm their healths (except in the more extreme cases). I'd be more worried about their minds and what they learn from the constant humiliation of diets at a young age.

But Coddington is just coming to that:

Then when they're at school, Spanz could force them to do some PhysEd, just like the bad old days. Oh, sorry, I forgot, we can't hurt or humiliate them anymore can we, if they're not good at running, or jumping, and come last, or fall over. In these post-modern days of child-centred learning, it's the self-esteem which is paramount.

Wow, so self-esteem is valued over competitive sports? That's terrible. Mind you, I wouldn't be against PhysEd if it were exercising in a way that feels fun - something most children already do on their own. But if you teach children that exercise is all about competition and being picked first for the team, will they want to exercise later in life? I recall learning one thing from PhysEd at school: exercise is not for me. I haven't exercised much in my adult life. I'm not saying it's all the school's fault - I'm just not a very athletic person - but I do blame the school for some of my aversion to exercise and fitness. I liked first grade PhysEd, because it was playing and dancing to music on our own. I actually question the value of teaching all children to play baseball or soccer.

We're only allowed to humiliate smokers, because they're a drain on the health system. Hang on, aren't obese people a drain on the health system too....?

How about we don't dehumanize anyone by calling them "a drain on the system", and we don't humiliate anyone? I'm not even sure what Coddington is saying here. Is she actually in favor of humiliation, as long as it makes people live healthier? Wouldn't that amount to government interference and go against individual choices? Her article doesn't go deeper into this, so I can't tell. But I dare say this passage reveals Coddington's true colors: she's all about individual choice, as long as she doesn't have to pay for others' choices with her tax money. So a nanny state that makes people eat healthy might be A-OK, as long as you don't limit capitalism and the freedom of companies.

Next stop on the gravy train to Whingeville: ever-widening gap between so-called rich and poor.

"So-called rich"? Interesting. Coddington seems to be suggesting that if any social reforms are made, it would only make things worse. Let's keep everything the way it is now, because it's (going well for her) a risk to change anything. Of course, she straw-mans the idea of fast food restrictions by talking about nationalising the dairies etc. I'm not sure how awful that would really be, but it sounds suspiciously like "any restrictions amount to socialism!!!!!1". 

Humiliating children for their own good is a ridiculous idea. Making lower-class parents feel guilty for their children's "obesity" is simply a cop-out. I'm not against children eating fast food, but I wouldn't mind some restrictions on fast food companies. They should have accountability when they're marketing to children. Companies should have accountability, period. Parents already feel guilty enough, and they do take responsibility for their children. Let's demand more of those those who just want to make money. 

My boyfriend Toby has shared some feelings on his gender identity on tumblr. He raises the issue of being a transman but having some typically feminine interests:

I’ve never felt happier and calmer about my identity since I realised that’s all bullshit, and I can be a man regardless of how “feminine” I am. I’d never say that a cis man is not a man just because he liked those “girly” things as a kid, or he isn’t into sports, or he has long hair, or whatever else. So why was I invalidating my male identity based on that stuff? Why can’t I be a man, regardless of my behaviour? Should I have to be extra masculine, more than a cis man, to “prove” I’m male?

I'm still in "OMG my boyfriend is so awesome <3 <3 <3" mode, but I thought his piece was genuinely mature and well thought out. Since we first talked about his trans feelings, I've learned a lot about gender. I've made assumptions in the past and thought in terms of gender binary. This is helping me grow and see that the variety of people. 


I feel Toby has had many important epiphanies about gender, and this is certainly one of them. So proud of you baby. :* 

Mike & Molly - Where It Fails

I haven't done this in a while, but I feel like blogging about this show. So you know, I will. Here we go. *plunges*

I wanted to like the new CBS comedy Mike & Molly. It's about fat people, and it has two actors I really like, the adorable Melissa McCarthy and Swoozie Kurtz. Here, however, they have nothing to work with. The premise is that a fat cop and fat school teacher who meet at an Overeaters Anonymous meeting - start dating. Well, it has "fat people" and "dating" in the same show. That's a plus. On the other hand, the show also takes for granted that fat people=overeaters. Almost all of the jokes are based on fat, so it seems to assume fat = hilarious too. Sigh. 

This is not a hateful show. It's well meaning and tries to be kind, and it didn't trigger any of my issues. But if you're going to make a show specifically about fat people, it would be nice to see something a little more... well, revolutionary? This is the kind of show that scratches on the very shallow surface of fat acceptance, but falls short because so many things should be addressed, and most of them went completely undiscussed here.

The first episode circles around fat jokes, sassy Black friends, brainless sisters who get high. It's not very ambitious as far as sitcoms go. Mike meets Molly, Mike tries to ask her out, but then he breaks a table and injures his pinky, and there's commotion. And then they meet again and he chickens out again. And then, as he comes to investigate a robbery at Molly's house, he finally asks her out. End of episode 1. In episode two, we have Mike and Molly's first date. Mike shops at the Big&Tall store, cue more fat jokes. Molly tries on some clothes, fat jokes again. Then Molly, who's sneezing constantly, takes too much cough syrup and is completely high for their date. Her mother makes fun of Mike's new sweater, about twenty times. Molly yells at the waiter that they may be fat but don't make any assumptions that they're "dessert people". Then she orders a creme brulee. At the end of the date, it's a bit sweeter and they obviously like each other. But really, after a long episode of fat jokes, who's still watching? 

So in the end, it is just a sitcom, and it commits the gravest crime of sitcoms: it's not funny. At all. I didn't laugh once, and I laugh easily.The laugh track, of course, couldn't stop cracking up. Most of the jokes are puns - about being fat, at that - and this kind of humor rarely works. I'm a little confused; if they can't write a funny joke, why not make it a drama? Or a dramedy like Gilmore Girls - no laugh track, witty banter, warm moments, ordinary people?

The good thing is, they have obviously tried to dust up some of the clichés. The Black sidekick is the slim one. (Albeit still sassy and talkative.) The fat people are aware of their weight and talk openly about it. There's no scene with a fat girl overeating as her thin friends look on with disgust. In fact, there's a scene where the fat girl watches her thin mother and sister eat, and they tell her to indulge.

Let's stop there. They. Tell her. To indulge. And her mother says she's not fat, just big-boned, it's in the genes.

This was the point where I realized I'm not in the target group. I would have killed to have that mother. My mother made me feel bad for my weight throughout my childhood. (And I wasn't even overweight, let alone fat.) Even if she's chubby and my father's fat, she wouldn't admit it's in the genes. Even if a doctor once told her it is. It's all about eating and/or exercise, and it's my fault. 

Now, I'm trying very hard to not make this about my own Mommy issues. But Molly's Mom on the show is made to look like an old-fashioned idiot who knows nothing about fat. Molly shoots her down with "Bones don't jiggle, Ma", and gripes about not getting enough support. It's obvious that we're supposed to think Molly's the enlightened one, realizing it's all about her own effort. Meanwhile, her pothead sister and carefree Mom eating the cake are being ignorant and irresponsible.

Suddenly, this sounds familiar: women eating and being scolded for being bad examples. The eating one is oblivious/ignorant, the one on the treadmill is the smart one. It's just that they have the fat girl on the treadmill this time. Therein lies one problem with the show: a simple role reversal isn't enough. You need to question the underlying values. Maybe I'm asking too much of a sitcom, but still.

There isn't even enough role reversal going on. It's like they looked at a list of fat clichés - Black fat sidekick - and turned it into a slightly turned-around version - Black THIN sidekick. Fat woman can't be desirable - fat woman is the object of attraction. The fat guy, however, is still shy and socially awkward. And it's up to him to ask her out because he's the man. Of course, there's a flurry of issues here - why doesn't the thin sidekick get interested in the fat girl too, why are Mike and Molly both single to begin with, why is Molly living with her mother and sister, why does she dress in incredibly drab clothes..? All of these things scream "fat cliché" to me. 

The scene I found the most offensive: in episode one, Mike starts to overeat because he's so depressed! Oh, dear! Of course, he does this in a public place where everyone can see him. The thin sidekick shows up to take away his food - "a suicide with meatball bullets" - because he already lost three and a half pounds and has to keep it down. Mike says, "Big deal, my farts weigh three and a half pounds." Which is so self-loathing that it doesn't register as funny to me. It's true though, three and a half pounds is not much, you can gain and lose that much from eating/digesting one heavy meal. And if he has overeating issues, it shouldn't be about how many pounds he loses; it should be about dealing with the underlying issues. This isn't The Biggest Loser. 

So the show has, at the very least, a problematic attitude on fat. It's your own fault, it's something you have to work on, it makes you depressed, it means you have food issues. You can still have a decent job and a love life, but you can't forget for a second that you are fat. It's not very funny to me. In fact, it's kind of depressing. I think I'll stick to Roseanne.