What's So Funny 'Bout Peace Love And Understanding?

I don't know why someone would come to this particular site and rant about how overweight people don't exercise, how we need to put down the cheeseburgers, and how we are "catered to" in society. She seems angry because all this somehow makes it impossible for her to get size zero clothes. Somehow I don't think the size zeros of the world have it that hard in terms of clothing options. Unless she's looking for some horrifying outfit involving applique and animal prints. I think those only come in size twenty and up.

Need Clothes?

I wanted to direct interested parties to this 2004 post, where an Anonymous just added on a whole bunch of links to online shopping for plus sizes. Just scroll on down to the bottom. I personally had never heard of Svoboda before, for one, so am happy to have the heads up!

I love getting comments on old posts. And hey, I just figured out how to delete comments that are spam. It only took me two years.

How Fabulous Are You?

That's one of the questions on the entry form for the Fab Woman cover model contest.

"FabWoman.Net recognizes and will reward a full-figured woman that personifies strength, confidence, and perseverance while setting positive and encouraging examples to uplift and motivate the plus size woman by crowning her the new FabWoman.Net 2007 Cover Model and delivering fabulous prizes including a make-over, photo shoot, 12 cover features on magazine, gigantic billboard placement, shopping spree, and much, much more."

So if you want to be uplifted and motivated and stuff, and maybe get a makeover, now's your chance!

L'obesitie

My first reaction to the New York Times article about the French fight against obesity is that I feel really sorry for the model in that poster. I can't imagine being the spokesbody for Fat! Shame! nor can I imagine what the photo shoot must have been like. I guess it's kind of beside the point, yet that's what I keep thinking about.

Ripping Off Posts From Big Fat Blog

Just checked in over at Big Fat Blog and found a few things I'd missed:

1. An interesting essay on The State of the F-Word. Any essay that contains the sentence "Fat is like a killer clown that may honk a horn at you" is worth reading, in my estimation.

2. The awesome Ampersand is hosting a Big Fat Carnival where you can nominate your favorite fat-positive blog posts. (Even from this very blog if you have any favorite posts. I personally will be hunting through the archives of Fatty McBlog, because those girls are fabulous. And Pound, obviously.)

3. A critique of Kirstie Alley's new Jenny Craig commercial, which features the song "It's Raining Men" which sort of tells you all you need to know. "Not only is it unreasonable to say that a woman must lose 50 pounds in order to find a man, but where are the men? In all of these commercials, it’s always a woman feeling alienated because of her weight. Obesity affects men, women and children—not just middle-aged women with withering self-esteem."

Thanks to Big Fat Blog, basically for existing so that I can steal all these links from you.

Orlistat/Xenical

So, what do you guys think about this drug being made available over the counter?

I heard some discussion about this on my local morning radio show, and they were pointing out that weight loss is between five and six pounds over a six-month period (so one pound per month) and that it works "when combined with a plan of diet and exercise" and has a whole mess of side effects. You also have to take a vitamin, because it leeches nutrients out of your system.

Their final analysis was that it wasn't worth it, basically. I don't see it as being particularly dangerous, but I won't eat the Olestra Doritos, and I probably wouldn't take this. Then again, I'm not a big fat-eater anyway. My problem is sugar. I'd probably be all over a sugar-blocker pill, side effects or not!

Thanks to the gang at Tight Science for the links.

Fatwatch: Britney Spears

We’re back to Fat Britney in Star Magazine, although there’s no real way to tell if this is a new picture or an old picture. Plus, I’d be shoveling down the comfort food too if I woke up one day and realized that Kevin Federline was the father of my child. So let’s not be too hard on poor Britney.

Do You Have That Trophy In My Size?

Hey, Big Fat Deal came in second in the popular voting, just behind Do You Have That In My Size?, a faboo blog that deserves its many accolades. (For the record, I also would have lost to hello i am fat if given the chance.)

I guess the next stage is the judging, where we wait and see if this blog can hang on to its second place status. Thanks to all who voted!

All The Bases

An excellent article about the guilt associated with being fat, and how society victimizes overweight people.

"'Feminist theory says that the ideal body has gotten smaller and smaller' as women have gotten more power, she said. 'For a woman to have power in this culture, she is supposed to be thin.'"

Nothing we haven't heard before, but still worth a read.

Comment of the Week

On this post, Anonymous has this to say:

"In America when we can't solve a problem we try to make the world to accept the problem with words like 'It's not too bad'. Or sometimes we even protest against the solution of the problem. For example, in the SF Bay Area, a few years ago, a group of overweight people called the press and TV media to a celebration of 'fat is beautiful, let's not fight it' and staged dances to show how the world would be if we all let our bodies go. I am overweight and I didn't like it a bit. First I laughed, it was funny, for a while, than it was sad. The desperation for acceptance sometimes makes us look pathetic. I've lost a few pounds, since."

I'm not posting this to pick a fight with you, Anonymous! But I disagree with you. I don't think it's "desperation" that makes us want overweight people to be treated with respect, and I don't think we're "pathetic" for having a problem with the way fat is demonized and the way fat people are stereotyped and discriminated against.

Some of us are happy with our overweight bodies, some aren't. I personally am, right now, not particularly happy with my weight. But my personal ideal weight might still be something that society would look at as disgusting, unacceptable, etc. Or even laughable, as you put it.

Someone who's overweight, whatever their personal story may be, whether they've lost or gained a hundred pounds to get there, is still subject to all the disdain and mockery and fat horror of the world. And that attitude is what needs to change, no matter what our individual weight or weight loss issues may be.

Up To Speed

A couple of back posts are now up, along with another batch of approved comments. And now that it's all over I can stop being coy and admit that I was in Paris for the week, hence the sporadic internet access. I was over there as a surprise for my best friend, who was being proposed to by his partner, so I had to keep it a big secret. So anyway now I'm back, and all the posts from the past week are up. And the proposal went great!

On the plane ride home I saw In Her Shoes finally. And as a person with a younger sister, I found the movie very well done and touching. But all the references to the character being fat had no impact at all since Toni Collette wasn't even "movie fat"! She was thin! The film would have had so much more resonance (the "Fat Pig" insult, the "who would want to marry me, I'm disgusting" line, etc.) if SHE HAD ACTUALLY BEEN OVERWEIGHT. Even a tiny bit overweight! Argh!

Anyway I thought of you guys immediately and had to share my irritation. I bet the book is great, though.

Get That Woman A Fat Suit

A thin woman goes on a cruise for “well-rounded” women and learns something.

”Though I'm ashamed to admit this, a few months ago when I heard about a Carnival cruise called Figure at Sea and targeted to plus-sized women, my mind was immediately stuffed with plus-sized puns: Moby Chicks. Bounty on the Mutiny. The Love-Handles Boat.”

La Wade Guest Post

It’s less of a “guest post” and more me “posting her e-mailed comments to me because I can’t figure out how to say it any better than she already has.”

The headline is “Obese 'don't want to lose weight,'" but then the header goes on to say that "More than a quarter of obese and overweight people do not want to lose weight, a survey says," which according to my calculations means that most of these people said they did want to lose weight. [Damnit, Jim, I’m a scientist, not a mathematician! But if 75% did want to lose weight, that headline is slightly specious.] The article also goes on to say that many obese people are not aware of the health risks of overweight, which I think is an interesting issue given the contradictory messages that have been in the media on this issue over the last year.

Speaking of which, there's an article out in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association that says that obesity raises your risk of heart disease and diabetes even if you have normal blood pressure and cholesterol.

Anyway, I am sure there is some interesting message to be synthesized from all of this about whether stressing the health risks of obesity is helpful to people trying to lose weight, or whether it's just discouraging and off-putting. I'm not sure exactly what it is, though...

I also think that’s interesting. Sticking your head in the sand about the real health risks of overweight is clearly not a great idea, but I personally didn’t know that your risk of heart disease was raised even if you have normal blood pressure and cholesterol, which is scary. I still think society will help the overweight and obese a lot more if they avoid demonizing them. I mean, obviously, since that’s the whole raison d’etre of this blog.

Sorry...

...for the sporadicness of this week; my internet connection will be back to its old reliable self on the 20th. In the meantime, three new posts and a lot of comments have just been added. Thanks for your patience!

Fat-us Symbol

According to the title, this article (sent in by Lori) is about increasing fat acceptance. But it goes on to almost immediately poke holes in that theory until it leaves me depressed at the end! That’s cheating!

"'I don't think we're going to go back to worshipping obese women, but it's interesting to see how attitudes change as more people become overweight,’ Cawley said. Others argue that people are merely becoming more politically correct and that bias against fat people is actually growing sharper.”

”... just standing next to a large woman can be bad for a guy's image. The study had young women look at one of two pictures: One of a trim young man standing next to a svelte woman, and the other showing the same man next to a heavy woman. When the man was shown standing by the large woman, he was rated 22 percent more negatively by the study volunteers than when he was next to the thin woman. When seen with the large woman, he was more likely to be described as miserable, depressed, weak and insecure.”

At my heaviest, I used to worry about this sometimes when I was out with my best friend. People always assumed we were a couple (and that included people who knew us and people who didn’t) and he never seemed to mind. Isn’t it sad that I considered this unusual?

Damn it, I need more dieting penguin pictures to cheer me up.

Caveat Emptor

An article about buyer’s remorse that’s not really about overweight people specifically, but is still interesting.

"Still, whether ‘a 2 or a 22,’ women tend to have trouble judging what fits them, Sack adds. ‘After 25 years of staring in the mirror, you sort of lose all cosmic idea of how you look. It's impossible to be objective.’... Style consultant Noelle Cellini swears by returns. ‘I keep receipts clipped to the hanger, and I don't take the tags off until I wear it. Or I don't hang it up until I wear it, and keep the receipt in the bag,’ she says. ‘That's money sitting in your closet.’"

I totally have bought clothes that I haven't tried on, bought clothes that I’ve never worn, and have gotten a lot better about returning things. But still! With clothes prices being what they are, this is pretty good advice. And I think overweight women can definitely relate to this part of it:

"'The pressure is higher for large women, who have a limited choice of stores, says Stephanie Sack, owner of Vive la Femme, a Chicago boutique that carries plus-size fashions. 'Women of size feel under the gun to buy something,' she says. 'Many live by the motto, "If it zips, it fits."'"

Amen to that.

Something Other Than Mom, Fat Friend, and Mrs Claus

I liked this article about "Fat Pig," the play by Neil LaBute.

"By the scene late in the play set at Tom's company beach party, in which Helen walks on in a bathing suit, an audience is thinking of Helen in a way fat people rarely are in American culture: as a sexual being. We're unsettled by the vulnerable position in which a woman can place herself through the simple act of baring her arms. If we look hard enough, the playwright seems to be saying, maybe we can learn to stop staring."

I'm sure, since it's Neil LaBute, the play ultimately goes on to break your heart. But what a great role for an overweight actress to get to play, eh?

Honesty, Promise Me

A wonderful post at Scale and Perspective about diet self-sabotage:

"I didn't have the A-ha! moment until last weekend when I went to log into [big on-line dating service] and thought, 'OMG, I've gained weight. I can't possibly start dating now!' And I felt so.very.relieved."

And while I'm on the subject of honesty, I also loved this post at Fatty McBlog:

"This blog is not about weight loss, and I am not about to say that these pictures inspired me to shut my mouth to fattening food and start walking 3 miles a day because that would probably be a lie, but I couldn't make this post funny for you all because there was nothing funny about the pictures. I am 25 years old and my body shouldn't look like it does."

So many brave women out there, all struggling with how to love ourselves. I salute you!

Best of Blogs II

The voting is happening here, and of course I would encourage you to read all the excellent blogs in each of the categories, and vote your conscience! I personally won't vote until I've read all the other blogs nominated alongside mine, and I will even vote for one if I think it's better than Big Fat Deal. However, I am biased, so I'm not promising anything. Maybe it's unethical to vote for myself? Maybe I shouldn't vote at all.

Anyway, while I wrestle with this moral dilemma, I discover that right now I am tied for second place. How exciting!

Choose Your Own Adventure

If you’re looking to pick out a diet for the new year, this rundown of some of the more popular diets makes a good read.

”Remember that girl from high school? The one who desperately wanted to be popular, but her grades were just too good? This diet is like that girl. The Ornish Diet just isn’t faddish enough to draw the kinds of people who will literally try anything – like living on Pez for seven days – to lose weight. Its nutritional theory is too sound...And yet, you can tell Ornish really wishes it had a cool-sounding name like ‘South Beach’ and a celebrity spokesperson like that guy from The Lord of the Rings. (“Life Choice is becoming a real ‘hobbit’ with me!”)

Lohannia

Picked up from gossip maven Shawn at The Usual Suspects, this article provides some all important Lindsay Lohan follow-up.

Our discussion in the comments to the previous Lohan post was about how if she said she was “making herself sick,” that doesn’t necessarily equal an eating disorder. But from the interview with the writer of the Vanity Fair piece:

“’I think Lindsay was most revealing about her eating disorder, actually," Peretz tells CBS News. ‘She was very open about that, and she really said, “I could have died."’ Peretz says Lohan described to her how her illness developed: ‘She was hospitalized during the filming of “Herbie Fully Loaded” and, while in the hospital, she lost a lot of weight, and when she got out, she really liked how she looked, and she continued to diet, and she also had bulimic episodes. And she really took it too far.’”

Now I’m back to thinking she did have an eating disorder and is covering it up. Or maybe she just used cocaine to lose weight. I hear that works great!

Lindsay Lohan

Anonymous reminds us that we haven't talked about Lindsay Lohan's bulimia yet, which indeed is an oversight!

"It was when she saw footage of herself on a 'Saturday Night Live' television appearance looking skeletal that Lohan became aware of how ill she really was. 'I saw that 'SNL' after I did it. My arms were disgusting. I had no arms,' she said."

I'm glad Lohan has admitted this problem; it sends the message to her tween fans that there is a such thing as too thin. (Also see: Ritchie, Nicole.)

For an added dash of fun, see the evolution of Lindsay Lohan at Go Fug Yourself.

Fat Cats Are Cute

Also courtesy of La Wade, here are some cute before and after pictures of Mischief, the dieting cat who lost eleven pounds in nine months.

I love the expression on his face in the "before" picture. It's like, "what do you mean I can't have any more Fancy Feast!?" Whereas he looks pretty pissed off in the "after" picture. "Big is beautiful, you bastards! God!"

Nothing Funny About It

If you'll recall, the article referenced in this post mentioned that rates of cancer and heart disease are declining, and life expectancy is increasing. However, the article neglects to consider Type II diabetes, an increasingly prevalant disease. Courtesy of La Wade, here is an extremely scary New York Times article about the causes and consequences of this disease.

The article focuses on children, who are increasingly likely to suffer from Type II diabetes. (Apparently they changed the name; it is no longer known as "adult-onset" diabetes due to this phenomenon.)

"One in three children born in the United States five years ago are expected to become diabetic in their lifetimes, according to a projection by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The forecast is even bleaker for Latinos: one in every two."

The article considers obesity as one of the factors, but not the only factor, in this disease:

"Type 2 is also spurred by obesity and inactivity. This is particularly true in those prone to the illness. Plenty of fat, slothful people do not get diabetes. And some thin, vigorous people do."

Registration is required to read the article.

Best Of Blogs

Big Fat Deal seems to be nominated for a Best of Blogs award! How exciting. I'm all ready to vote for myself but can't figure out how. Hee.

Ten Million Diet Plans

eDiets.com is one of our fabulous sponsors, and so I headed over there to do the free diet profile. But right away they ask you to choose a diet. The choices are: Total Body Makeover (by Oprah), The Mayo Clinic Plan, Atkins, Glycemic Impact Diet, New Mediterranean Diet Plan, eDiets.com Weight Loss Plan, and Bill Phillips' Eating For life.

The only one of these I know anything about is Atkins. I think the Total Body Makeover is focused on exercise, and the Mediterranean diet involves olives and yogurt and feta cheese. (I am totally making this up.)

What I really want is something like South Beach, where you have a phase of cutting sugars, carbs, alcohol etc. totally out of your diet. My sugar cravings have become a problem, and I've been eating unhealthily and feeling gross. I really want to do some kind of a system flush for a couple of weeks.

Anyone tried any of these diets? Good, bad, indifferent? Easy, difficult? Anyone tried eDiets.com? Is it any good?

Our First Anonymous Tip!

And it's about, who else, Star Jones. Check out the comments. I completely choose to believe in the veracity of our anonymous source.

Comment of the Week

On this post (I told you Star Jones was still popular):

"I am so beyond over the goal of being a size 4. I am the happiest I have been in years and wearing a 16. Am I overweight...yes, but I was a size 20. I am proud of myself and should probably continue the downward scale tilt, but I am just so tired of trying to attain the unattainable single digit size. I was so proud to see famous fatties like Star Jones and that girl from Less than Perfect, Josh, from Drake and Josh, but now they are all making these drastic body changes and looking like everyone else in the crowd. These were the same people that were preaching the big is beautiful thing. Yes, healthier is better, but it more looks like the pressure of perfect holywood has taken the lead role. I am so sick of it and looking for a new role model who does not feel like perfect has to be a size 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Thanks, er, Ladies of Laurel Lakes, for your post! I also hate to see the "big is beautiful" people become tiny, even though I know it's nothing to do with me.

Star Jones and Britney Spears

I'm always on the lookout for Star Jones news. I have no idea what's going to happen to Big Fat Deal when Star Jones falls off the radar. Maybe Britney Spears can gain some more weight so I'll still have some readers.

Oh speaking of Britney, she "thanked" the tabloids for the fat pictures that helped her lose the weight. Hopefully the pictures of her and Kevin will motivate her to lose the Kevin. God knows he is far more unsightly than the extra pounds ever were.

Anyway, so Star did an interview about her new book:

She also delves into her significant weight loss, although she chooses not to reveal specifically how she lost nearly 150 pounds. 'I worry ... that you won't do everything you need to do for yourself,' she says. 'You'll make choices based solely on what you see as the aftermath and not what the struggle was.'"

Translation: "I totally had gastric bypass surgery, suckers."

Charter Member Of THSOTBA, or THSTBA, or maybe HSBA

TranceJen tells us all about Weight Watchers:

"I think they’re only out to sell their food, which is loaded with unhealthy preservatives and other assorted addictive shit, just like the rest of the diet industry’s shit, designed to get you addicted and even fatter, stuck in the dieting cycle, because they’re a multi-million dollar corporation who could not possibly give less of a shit about you and your fat ass."

While I have no such vitriol towards Weight Watchers, I will totally join "The Holy Sisters of The Big Asses" as soon as Trance starts it up.

Another Link

In yet another link between poverty and obesity, children who live in unsafe neighborhoods are four times more likely to be overweight.

"In effect, there may well be a relatively simple and straightforward relationship between living in a dangerous neighbourhood and overweight; namely, in attempting to protect their children from harm, parents not only decrease the kind of physical activity that comes from playing outdoors in the neighbourhood but inadvertently increase the likelihood of sedentary activity that comes from staying indoors."

Makes perfect sense. I was warned that there had been a spate of daytime rapes on the bike path near my house, and I suddenly didn't much feel like biking there anymore. Sad but true.

Come And Knock On Our Door

Ooh, a series on celebrity diets! The first article covers Suzanne Somers's "Eat Great, Lose Weight" diet, which apparently features food combining, along with a lot of relatively sensible advice. Unfortunately, the article is a little skimpy and vague. I suggest this site about food combining if you're curious to know the rules.

And Go Ask Alice says "If someone changes from eating a diet of highly refined food that is high in fat to eating the variety of whole, minimally processed, basic foods that are recommended in a food combining diet, they may feel better and lose weight by virtue of the change in the quality of food. This is coincidental to the food combining precepts, rather than directly attributable to it."

Interesting!

More About Surgery

Reader Midknyt alerted me to this article about an upcoming study to compare the three most common types of weight loss surgeries. It seems that the lap-band surgery is the safest, and gastric bypass more risky than previously believed. (No statistics are provided to back up these claims.)

"But regardless of which method is used, studies show an inescapable reality: No surgery gives lasting results unless people also change eating and exercising habits. 'The body just has many ways of compensating, even after something as drastic as surgery.'"

There's also a brief mention of a drug called rimonabant that "blocks a pleasure center in the brain." But I like my pleasure centers!