phat

[fflo]

This story on how Feeling Fat May Be Worse For You Than Being Fat was picked up by Paul at Big Fat Blog (this item) (haven't read many comments yet, but a user going by Big Liberty did a little analysis of the study & then signed off with this motto you gotta love: Not only will I eat your baloney, I'll bust it, too.); infinitepresent just linked to the story of the study, having seen it in public_health. Hell, a public health feed of any sort seems like mainstream press when it's a story about the harm of fatphobia, vs. the Harm of the Scourge of the Curse of the Epidemic of OBESITY (which is costing You MONEY, those Fat Pigs, oh wait you ARE one? oh, you get a different schtick, hold on...). And Dave's link is to the Reuters page that'd picked it up.

Maybe the bigger media just need some additional angles to draw people (they've) tormented about fat to take in more on the subject. As in here's a crazy angle---could it be that... ? Then back to a huge helping of the other kind of fat story. And there will continue to be, as long as there's so much drug company money financing those sorts of studies/stories.

I have to say, the only fat activist blog I read the feed of consistently is Big Fat Blog. Kinda of a round-up sort of Utne Reader of the fatosphere, any more. Only hepper'n Utne. Sorry if you're a big Utne fan. Is it still even in print? or in "print"? Anyway (it's not the end of Fat Tuesday yet so I can still say "anyway"), I don't remember when I started to think Utne Reader was getting lame, or my taste was changing, or what. Irritation with baby boomers of privilege was probably what was poisoning it, but I don't know if that'd be more something that was changing in the publication or something that was changing in me.

My, but I do digress. ANYWAY (mwaaaAAAA-ha haaa! ... i'm so crazy/drunk/fulla-beads .. . .), if any of you read any particular fat blogs pretty much solidly, which are they? I'm still largely (haha) a dabbler and browser. Though I do find myself returning to some of them in particular.


I tried to get the Super Bowl on the little TV in this room, but no way. No whey, no weigh, no h-wayy. So I have Meet the Fokkers on. I think I saw the one before this. This ones's got 4 classic movie baby boomer(ishe)s in it, in the form of the parents of the principle characters: Dustin Hoffman & Barbara Streisand parented Ben Stiller; De Niro and Blythe Danner parented whoever that woman is playing Mrs. Ben Stiller. The joke is the philosophies of whacky loose hippies vs. uptight establishment spook types.

The commercials on this movie are intense enough, to me, who hasn't been watching TV.


Anyway, back to fat, I was thinking of how another example of fat "family" family I know and I were recently speaking of community and subculture and levels of being let in, and I was talking about how learning about the concentric circles of trust within Deaf community helped me think about layers of subcultures and relativity among them even more than did the "linked oppressions" notion of feminism (which was nonetheless one of my favorite developments in that movement).

The thing is, there are real connections, real links between the internal experiences of people processing dominant culture bullshit about body image. There are also real oppressions that are inflicted specifically on the fat. It's fuzzy, though, who are the fat. Since fat, like race, and (I'm gonna lose some of you here, I know it, but here I go anyway) like gender, is a construct. In addition to being something physiological (and variously "measurable") and psychological, it's something cultural. Until we can get each other thinking culturally, people aren't going to get it.

Anthropology classes should be required in public schools. In well-funded public schools (as long as I'm dreaming).

Comments

[lickingtoad.livejournal.com]

You know me -- I'm the guy people always joke will slip through the cracks in linoleum tiles, given a chance. (I've occasionally joked that wednes and I should go Halloweening as Jack Sprat-and-wife.)

Anyway, I just thought I'd share what I wish was a common sentiment -- I immedately despise anyone who dons a 'fat suit' to elicit some emotional response in re: 'fat'.

The Byzantine method of art, if you've seen it, made the body only the vehicle for the spirit -- the pale, emaciated figures in various mosaics aren't intended to be venerated -- body = detrius, soul = quality. I've internalized that, I swear, simply because I pay attention to a soul. The body it occupies is incidentsl.

I don't know if that matters or helps, but it's certainly kept me on the lookout for 'substance.' I love not as a matter of weight or color or orientation or fashion, but (as much as I can manage) "depth." God, I hope Taylor Hanson is deep ... (Ha!)

Celebrity seems to preclude depth. Everyone I love isn't famous, they're simply real. I'm almost sure if I were trapped in an elevator with Elijah Wood, I would be disappointed. The souls of my chosen family provide fascination forever.

[paperkingdoms]

Utne still exists; I've been trying to not have a subscription anymore for what feels like years. You'd think not paying them anymore would do it, but no. So it continues to come in the mail.

[shmuel.livejournal.com]

For whatever it's worth, a friend of mine (Mo) was on TV last week on the subject. (Worthless show, but she and her friend done good.)

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

I could make a thousand rants here, all going nowhere, and probably all old-hat to you anyway. Like "thin privilege" and "attractive privilege" and weight-loss attempts making weight gain, and depression exacerbated by ostracism, about obesity being acceptable only if one presents as asexual, about a beloved woman's cancer symptoms being attributed to obesity, about not knowing what I've lost to my looks, and what I've lost what I think of my looks, and I don't have the energy or soul to do justice to a single one. I'm just too worn down and tired by it all.

But if loneliness and poverty can kill, then yes, the article barely makes a tenth of the point. The social, personal, and economic consequences of being seen as fat and being seen as ugly, whether by ones self or by others, are far more nasty than pretty people seem to understand. And I've noticed that all the doctors I see these days are pretty.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

I don't know whether there even is a feed of it, but I do rather adore Junkfood Science (http://www.junkfoodscience.blogspot.com).

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Ya'll's comments rock, ya'll.