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The ever-astute Harriet commented today on a breaking news story from the Orlando Sentinel on Oprah’s recent weight gain.

The story brings up excellent points about the futility of dieting and the fact that, if Oprah with her millions all her money and personal chef and personal trainer can’t lose weight, realistically, who can? But as Harriet points out, the article still erroneously conflates fatness with overeating, and particularly, emotional overeating. Writes Harriet:

It would have been nice if the reporter followed up on the ideas she raised–that very few people can lose a lot of weight and keep it off, that dieting is part of the reason. It would have been nice if the word genetics was mentioned anywhere in the story.

So, it was nice to see an article from The Casper Journal pick up where the Orlando Sentinel article left off. Although the story addresses the efforts of a group in Wyoming to raise awareness of eating disorders, it raises very valid points for everyone, regardless if you have an eating disorder or not.

Genetics play a major role in a person’s body type, and fighting your natural size and shape can lead to unhealthy dieting practices, poor body image and decreased self-esteem, according to Joanne Theobald, a member of the Natrona County Eating Disorders Task Force.

The set point theory that is used says that a person’s body naturally will maintain a certain weight. Yo-yo dieting will cause the set point to increase after each weight gain-loss cycle, Theobald said.

People need to focus on what their body can do and how it feels, rather than being “ornamental,” she noted.

The group is participating in NEDA’s Great Jeans Giveaway in which people are encouraged to donate their aspirational “skinny jeans” for jeans that actually fit their bodies. They’re also featuring a replicate of what Barbie would look like if she were a real human. If built proportionately from the plastic model, Barbie would be 6-foot tall, weigh 110 pounds, have a 13-inch waist, wear size 4 clothes and size 3 shoes, and would qualify as an anorexic.

In a recent Bitch magazine article, Lily Rygh-Glen claims eating disorders to be the “lavender menace” of the fat acceptance movement. Her contention is that those in the fat acceptance movement feel threatened by people with binge-eating disorders, because if these people give up those binges, they’ll naturally lose weight and make the rest of us look bad. It didn’t take much to deconstruct this poorly written article, but Meowser did a wonderful job of it.

Let’s sidestep the issue that recovery from an eating disorder does not necessarily mean weight loss - many people, like myself, actually gain weight once we resume eating a healthy diet again.

Rather, it’s articles like the one above that instead, makes me see yet again just how much the fat acceptance movement has in common with eating disorder recovery groups. While not every fat person has an eating disorder, we are nonetheless united in our efforts to fight an increasingly disordered culture.