Marilyn Wann
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@NYTimes: All the news that's NOT fat, we'll print

6/29/2014

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by Marilyn Wann

This week, Lisa Du Breuil alerted people to the New York Times' "Invitation to a Dialogue: Talking about Obesity." From the name alone, you know it's going to be bad. The so-called dialogue begins with a lengthy letter from someone who pulls a classic Susie Orbach maneuver: decrying dieting and negative appearance talk as damaging for average-weight girls but urging them as necessary for fat girls because…health.

My response wasn't picked for publication, but I was still eager this morning to see which fat community person or Health At Every Size® proponent they included…
Not. A. Single. One. 

That's not a coincidence, that's prejudice in action. (HAES was mentioned…snidely…by a diet book author/MD who got the name wrong, calling it "Health At Any Size.")

Adding insult and idiocy, here's the headline of the so-called dialogue: "Is Obesity O.K.?"

Two obvious points: 
1. Fat people don't need permission. 
2. The word "obesity" [sic] is not okay. It's inaccurate as a diagnostic category and dangerous as a term that supports and promotes discrimination in all sorts of settings.

I've heard that at least three people submitted fat-poz/HAES responses. None were used. Here's a breakdown of the responses that were included…

my (unpublished) response:

To the editor: Carol Weston is right to warn against dieting and weight-negative talk. They are ineffective, injurious, and encourage an ugly prejudice. That's why it's unconscionable when she insists on the same old weight focus for larger girls. Bad advice doesn't magically turn into good advice just because Weston can't see fat girls as healthy and happy. Weight-loss initiatives have targeted fat children since the Kennedy administration. After decades of such efforts, we have rampant eating disorders, punishing increases in weight bullying, and none of Weston's desired weight loss. If we want children to adopt healthy habits and feel welcome in society, stop adding the unnecessary and unhelpful poison pill of weight bias to what should be enjoyable and self-affirming experiences of food and fitness. A weight-neutral, Health At Every Size® approach expands both wellness and civil rights. Children of all sizes need safe sidewalks, reduced junk food marketing, *and* protection from body policing. It's not a good way to start a dialogue.

  • 1 letter from the Obesity [sic] Action Coalition (which believes fat kills)
  • 1 letter from two MDs who believe fat kills
  • 2 letters from teen girls who believe fat kills
  • 1 letter from a woman who believes all women prefer being a size 10 to a size 16
  • 1 letter from a woman who believes "overweight" [sic] children should not be shamed, but should get diet/exercise advice from pediatricians
  • 1 letter that a woman who describes the negative impact of weight stigma, then writes: "Does being fat have health risks? Maybe, though the jury is out on whether it is weight or lifestyle that matters. Clearly a fat fit person who eats healthfully is in a much healthier place than a thin couch potato with an unhealthy diet." [Insert 'good fatty' critique here!]

Where was a letter from a fat civil rights group, for balance? Where were letters from HAES-based medical experts, for balance? Where were letters from fat teens, for balance? Where were letters from fat adults who have a wholly fat-positive worldview, for balance? 

In case it wasn't already obvious: We live in a society in which a publication of record can give prominent space to people who are encouraged to criticize an entire demographic group as if we're all sick and wrong, while making sure to exclude any voices of people who are proud to be part of that demographic group…and call that dialogue. Such choices are not even questioned, much less treated as career-ending errors.

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Oz goes to Washington: Magic beans not worth a hill of beans on the Hill?

6/20/2014

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by Marilyn Wann

This week, Oz (he's not my doctor!) was called before the Senate's subcommittee on consumer protection for his promotion of ostensible weight-loss products.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., the subcommittee chair, said, "The scientific community is almost monolithic against you in terms of the efficacy of the three products you called 'miracles.'…I don't get why you need to say this stuff because you know it's not true." 

Oz's excuse, basically: "You gotta give 'em hope." (His version is a toxic mimic of Harvey Milk's rallying call for queer pride.)

Oz testified: "My job, I feel, on the show is to be a cheerleader for the audience, and when they don't think they have hope, when they don't think they can make it happen, I want to look, and I do look everywhere, including in alternative healing traditions, for any evidence that might be supportive to them."
Dr. Oz green coffee beans Senate McCaskill
Photo by Orion Cooper
Does he imagine that without false hope from a magic bean, people will give up on eat-less/exercise-more weight-loss efforts?

Or is his weight-loss advice a classic shell game: Keep people leaping from one magic bean to the next magic bean. Instead of stopping to ask why magic beans fail so predictably, people who regain weight after buying the purple-with-yellow-spots magic bean will still be eager to buy the orange-and-fuchsia-striped magic bean, or the lime-green-with-black-chevrons magic bean, because...HOPE.

During the Senate hearing, a Federal Trade Commission official testified that their surveys find more consumers are victims of fraudulent weight-loss products than any other type of fraud they ask about.

The very existence of a $66 billion/year (and growing) weight-loss industry is proof that their products fail to produce on their promises. If any one of them worked, wouldn't they all go out of business?

Even with ostensibly sensible eat-less/exercise-more approaches, we know that nearly everyone who loses weight will regain it within a year or two. And many people will gain back more.

Instead of a misnomer like "weight-loss" industry, why not call it what it is:  the weight regain industry?

How about a more reliable definition of hope? The hope of living well in our very own bodies.
7 Comments

"Go, Weight Prejudice, Go!" — how Apple plays the wrong tune.

6/13/2014

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Apple iPhone
by Marilyn Wann

Apple has a new ad for the iPhone 5s and its fitness-related apps. Shots of people exercising — no fatties of course! — are edited to the "Chicken Fat" song, an institutional horror for people who were children in the 60s and 70s. The ad gives the impression of people in constant motion, hoping and striving to avoid the worst possible fate: being fat. This ad should be a thoroughly embarassing career-ender for its creators. Apple should immediately retract the ad. Both Apple and the featured app makers should apologize and learn how to value weight diversity.

The "Chicken Fat" song is a Cold War-era relic. JFK commissioned it from "Music Man" creator Meredith Wilson for the 1961-62 school year, as part of the presidential physical fitness program. Because fat children put democracy at risk. Now, First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move program is  "dedicated to solving the problem of obesity within a generation" and has schoolchildren dance to G-rated versions of a Beyoncé song. Because "obesity [sic]…is the terror within," according to one recent Surgeon General.

After 50 years, how is vilifying fat children still an exciting new idea?

I first heard the "Chicken Fat" song in third grade. In Southern California, rainy days meant recess was in the media center, not on the playground. We did callisthenics to a vinyl LP of Robert Preston singing, "Go, you chicken fat, go!" (If he had turned up the verve another notch, he'd have sounded like an evil villain.)

At the time, I remember my face flushing with shame at each of the song's cheesy putdowns. It was patriotic, outdated, eager to enlist joiners...and wished me gone. I was a slightly chubby child with a round face. I remember even now where I stood, and the color of the burnt orange institutional carpet, in that moment when our brilliant and energetic teacher Mrs. Lyday ( a fat woman) lowered the needle on the library's institutional grey record player. What was she thinking? What were my classmates thinking? Nothing good. I had never seen chicken fat and didn't understand what it had to do with me. Not only does the song compare people to an animal part (one associated with traditional Jewish cooking), in a classic dehumanizing move, but it calls people chicken too. How many children suffered through this song, with its toe touches and jumping jacks, over the decades? 

Just the previous year, in second grade, Mrs. Handy played the "Free to Be You and Me" album for us and we sang along. I already knew that the groovy, we're-all-in-this-together, your-feelings-matter populism of that album didn't include me. I'd known since the first days of kindergarten. I was the fat kid.

Meanwhile, Apple is proud to air an ad that makes anti-fat bigotry seem nostalgic and cozy and a civic duty.

I suggest writing to Apple and the makers of the apps featured in this ad. Better yet, write reviews in iTunes or wherever you buy apps. Let them know that their affiliation with prejudice-promoting content damages their reputation and their appeal. Post any responses you get, in comments here.

To quote Apple's tag line from this hateful ad: "You're more powerful than you think."

Contact:

Apple
408.996.1010
https://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

Wahoo Fitness
877.978.1112
http://www.wahoofitness.com/contact
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wahoo-fitness/id391599899?mt=8

Argus: Your Personal Tracker
http://www.azumio.com/contact/
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/argus-motion-fitness-tracker/id624329444?mt=8

Misfit Shine
http://www.misfit.com/contact
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/shine/id564157241?mt=8

SprintTimer
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sprinttimer-photo-finish/id430807521

Nike+ Running
800.806.6453
https://help-en-us.nike.com/app/ask/session/L3RpbWUvMTQwMjcwNTIzNy9zaWQvNGVpbW1MV2w%3D
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nike+-running/id387771637?mt=8

7 Minute Workout
7minuteworkoutapp@gmail.com
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/7-minute-workout/id650762525?mt=8

WeMo: syncing with your bathroom scale
http://www.belkin.com/us/contactus/support/
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wemo/id511376996?mt=8

Health Mate: steps tracker
http://withings.zendesk.com/anonymous_requests/new
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/withings-health-mate/id542701020?mt=8

miCoach smart ball by Adidas
800.982.9337
customerservice@service.shopadidas.com
http://store.apple.com/us/product/HFQQ2ZM/A/adidas-micoach-smart-ball

TRX Force: military conditioning program
888.878.5348
https://www.trxtraining.com/contact-us
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/trx-force/id575378654?mt=8

Zepp Golf
support@zepplabs.com
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/zepp-golf/id738428692?mt=8

StrongLifts5x5
http://stronglifts.com/contact/
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/stronglifts/id488580022?mt=8

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