The-F-Word.org

It’s Friday, the sky is blue, the sun is shining and I’m much too buoyant to dwell on frustrating and depressing news, so instead I’ll share some fuck-yeah! good news from the north. Canada’s National Eating Disorder Information Centre has teamed up with Toronto-based advertising agency Zulu Alpha Kilo to creatively combat unhealthy body images promoted by the fashion industry.  The small-budget guerrilla-style advertising campaign involved sending fashion editors and brand marketing directors across the country a Hallmark-style greeting card which reads, “Thanks for helping to make me such a successful anorexic.” They also sent out T-shirts with an absurdly small waist featuring the message, “Please try this on to experience how your ads make us feel.” And an interactive transit shelter with a poster reading “Shed your weight problem here” currently functions as a garbage bin for fashion magazines, complete with a slot at the front which allows consumers to add their glossies to a growing stack of Glamour, Vogue, and Fashion magazines.  The campaign’s broader goal asks marketers and fashion leaders to “cast responsibly and retouch minimally.”

More than half of all Canadian women diet, according to NEDIC, and one in four teenage girls engage in eating disordered behavior (in the U.S., it’s estimated that three out of four women have disordered eating and as many as 10 percent may have a full-blown eating disorder).  The fashion industry often bears the brunt for instilling unhealthy body images in girls and women and while NEDIC director Merryl Bear acknowledges that “a range of factors” are at play when it comes to eating disorders, the organization’s goal, she said, was to “focus on different audiences at different times to look at a broad range of some of the influences on body image and disordered eating.  We wanted to show that both the public and some fashion thinkers are ready for change. It may look provocative and edgy, but it is a very substantive campaign.”

NEDIC is collecting digital signatures for its petition, which asks fashion leaders and marketers to “broaden their definition of beauty and inspire us with looks that are beautiful and attainable.”  Watch highlights from the campaign below (beware: the video contains potentially triggering images of emaciated models).

Journalist Kate Baily wonders why more women don’t come out and tell their fat friends that they look like Shamu and need to speed dial Jenny Craig.  In an article in The Daily Express, she cites a recent study of 3,000 women in which one in five revealed she secretly thinks her best friend is fat but would never dare say so.  Baily writes:

So it seems we can’t even rely on our best friends to tell us when it’s time to quit the cupcakes.

Am I the only one who thinks that’s a crying shame? Whenever I watch TV diet programmes I am amazed that nobody has actually sat down with morbidly obese Jenny and had a word with her.

In that same un-cited study, Baily notes that one in four women “plucked up the courage” to tell a friend she should lose some of her fat ass — thus demonstrating nothing more than 25 percent of women are friends with a jerk — and of the friends in question, 12 percent “went mental” and one in five ended the relationship.  Baily wonders:

Isn’t that just a little, well, neurotic for grown-up women with jobs and families?  Shouldn’t we just be able to come right out and say, ‘You look like a badly trussed chicken in those jeans – go on a diet immediately’?

Right.  I’m willing to bet that Kate Baily doesn’t have all that many friends.

So, why don’t more women point out their gal pals’ flab? Uh, duh.  It’s because A: friends don’t police their friends’ weight or food choices and make them feel bad about themselves; B: your friend is a big girl (no pun intended) and can make her own decisions about what’s best for her and her health; and C: most fat people already know they’re fat, and therefore don’t need nor necessarily want their “friends” to hammer that point home or to offer up unsolicited weight-loss advice.  And should your fat friend ever want that advice, it’s not as if women’s magazines, television commercials, news outlets and even the White House aren’t already mass-churning out weight-loss tips and diet plans complete with fatalist warnings on how you and your fat ass are at risk for any number of so-called obesity-related diseases and are Public Enemy No. 1 to both the environment and national security.

And if it’s a case of emotional/compulsive overeating, binge eating or other eating disordered behaviors, focusing on a friend’s weight isn’t all that constructive or healthy.  Anyone who’s struggled with an eating disorder will tell you that it’s not about the weight — it’s about emotional issues, psychological and/or physical trauma, a need for power or control, etc… — and that weight is but a symptom of much larger issues at-hand.  Telling a friend with disordered eating issues that they “need to go on a diet immediately” is not only counterproductive in that it puts the focus on the symptom and not the cause, it’s also downright rude, callous and virtually irrelevant.  It’s a little like telling your unemployed friend who’s on public assistance that their clothes are shabby and unfashionable and that they need to go on a Saks shopping spree immediately.   As well, Kate Baily suffers from the culturally-driven delusion that not only is fat always unattractive, but that it’s always unhealthy — not to mention, that it’s always malleable.  When I was actively eating disordered, I received copious compliments about my weight loss that only spurred a disorder that damn near killed me.  Now that I’ve regained some of the weight I’ve lost, I’m much healthier and happier for it — something a true friend would already know.

A few of my more health-conscious friends and I discuss healthy foods and recipes and fitness and so forth, but weight rarely factors into these conversations because not only is it not all that high on our priority list, it’s also vapid and boring.  As part of my own commitment to recovery, which includes taking the pledge to end fat talk,  I actively seek to surround myself with people who respect me enough to not  infantilize me by asking if I really need that second helping and who have far more interesting things to talk about than their daily carb intake.  You?

So, Kevin Smith was booted from a Southwest flight earlier this week for being Too Fat To Fly (TFTF).  The “Clerks” director had originally purchased two tickets for his original flight from Oakland in anticipation of Southwest’s “Customer of Size” policy, but flew standby and caught an earlier flight.  He was permitted to board, but then was ejected after he had already taken his seat for being TFTF.   He fought back via his Twitter page, rapid-fire tweeting,

If you look like me, you may be ejected from Southwest Air;  @SouthwestAir, go fuck yourself. I broke no regulation, offered no “safety risk” (what, was I gonna roll on a fellow passenger?). I was wrongly ejected from the flight (even [attendant] Suzanne eventually agreed). And fuck your apologetic $100 voucher, @SouthwestAir. Thank God I don’t embarrass easily (bless you, JERSEY GIRL training). But I don’t sulk off either: so everyday, some new fuck-you Tweets for @SouthwestAir.

Among other media outlets, Nightline picked up Silent Bob’s anti-Southwest tweet-out and invited Golda Poretsky, an F-word reader and friend of the blog to appear last night — watch the clip with her here.  For your sanity, beware that everyone’s favorite anti-obesity nutjob Meme Roth also appears with some hackneyed shrilling about how fat people cause plane crashes with their “improper eating.”   Improper eating, indeed. I wonder if MeMe was able to squeeze in her four miles of running that day and therefore “allowed” herself to actually eat something before appearing on the 11:30 p.m. show.

I’ve blogged before about Kevin Smith’s decidedly conflicted views about his body and previous — and quite public — attempts to lose weight.  In his final blog post on the Southwest matter, Smith seems more concerned with the fact that he’s not TFTF than with Southwest’s discriminatory and vague policy for fat flyers.   The airline had initially offered Smith a $100 voucher — as if $100 sufficiently reimburses for the public embarrassment and ridicule — but after his Tweets was contacted by a Southwest representative named Linda, who explained that the problem actually lie with another passenger who was TFTF and Smith inadvertently got caught up in the melee.  Smith wrote:

Lots of folks still telling me to stop crying and lose weight – as if that’s what this was all about. Easier to tell the lie about the whiney Fatso than the truth that someone at Southwest fucked up. “Sure, someone fucked up, Lardo” You’re saying. “You and your fat gut! This is YOUR fault because you’re fat!”

Once again: I know I’m fat. The point of all this? I’m not too fat for Southwest Air, yet someone deemed me so. *sigh*

…And as pleasant as Linda was, clearly the notion of me going on Larry King scared the shit out of somebody over there.

I was very nice but very firm/clear with Linda: Southwestern needs to make this right. And “right” is Southwestern falling on their sword over a situation THEY CREATED and continued to mismanage for nearly 48hrs.

So I swore to Linda, up and down “Get me a document to sign, and I’ll swear on my child’s life and penalty of all I own that I’ll never sue your Airlines. But just PUT THE FUCKING TRUTH OUT THERE THAT I’M NOT TOO FAT TO FLY, AND THAT THIS WAS ALL AN UNFORTUNATE ERROR ON SOUTHWESTERN’S PART.”

Despite Linda’s reassurances that the situation was indeed accidental, Southwest still refused to admit that Smith wasn’t TFTF, which only further enraged the director.  And who can blame him?

I feel like a broken record with that stupid “But I could buckle and fit” shit. Pathetic, right? Grasping at any dignity straws. But that’s what you do when you’re kinda stripped of your dignity.

I could hear it in her voice: the sad frustration. Somewhere between the two phone calls, the bounty that was hinted at got a lot smaller. And while the apology is a little deeper now and more sincerely-worded than it was in the initial “apology” blog (thank you, Linda), it still infers that I need two seats to fly on Southwest Airlines.

I begged her to just put the truth in the about me and the seat belt and arm rest – at least admit you guys were wrong: that I wasn’t Too Fat To Fly. And while in phone call #1 it seemed promising, it didn’t happen. There was some standard corp-speak about how they’re going to examine their “Person of Size” policy, and how they know it needs change. I sincerely hope it does. That shit with the Girl on the flight was just heartbreaking and shameful.

But to be honest, I was looking for a little exoneration so I didn’t have to keep exonerating myself. And while Linda was kind and respectful, if they’re gonna stick with this “Well… he needed two seats…” shit, then we’re just back to square one.

You guys screwed up, SWA; why’s it so hard to own up to it? Now I’m gonna carry this Too Fat To Fly shit around like herpes for the rest of my life, and it was never even true.

So, Linda: I appreciate the effort you made, the time you spent with me on the phone, and the work you put into this. You, too, were a reasonable cat during our conversation.

But wrapping up with a repeating of that 2 seat policy (the one THAT HAS NO BEARING ON MY CASE) is a reminder that you guys haven’t learned anything: you’re still blaming it on the Fatty. Still, you tried. Thank you for that, Linda – and for being human.

As an occasional flyer (who fits comfortably in one seat, even on Southwest), I know how uncomfortable it can be to be seated next to someone who doesn’t quite fit entirely in their own seat.  But with 60 percent of Americans overweight or obese, is the problem with the paying customer or with the fact that Southwest’s shrinking airline seat?  Consider this:  Southwest requires any passenger who cannot comfortably lower the arm rests  to purchase another ticket.  Seat width on airlines is generally measured between the inside of the arm rests, but Southwest includes its armrests in its 17 inch “Customer of Size” policy, so that when you factor in the cushioning on the armrests, their seat width is actually more like 15 inches.  Seats on Southwest are 7-14 percent narrower than its other domestic counterparts, which tend to be 18 inches on average and even 20 inches wide, and much narrower than on other international airlines — even those that cater to clientele who tend to be disproportionately thinner than Americans!  In fact, a standard seat in a movie theater (about 18-20 inches) or on a New York subway (18 inches) is roomier than a seat on Southwest’s airline.   To put the airlines’ small seats into even further perspective, I have a 17 inch laptop that just meets Southwest’s grade.

Sure, sure… cramming people in like legless sardines is what helps keep Southwest’s tickets cheap for the masses, but as Kevin Smith points out, Southwest is blaming and financially penalizing the customer for IT not being able to adequately and comfortably meet the needs and realities of its passengers.  Southwest is promising to “examine” its “Customer of Size” policy, but as Smith points out again in a follow-up Tweet, they’re only doing so because they happened this time to piss off a celebrity who has the ability to get airtime on Nightline and Larry King.

I’ll let Silent Bob have the last word here: “Hey @SouthwestAir? Fuck making it right for me just ’cause I have a platform. I sat next to a big girl who was chastised for not buying an extra ticket because ‘all passengers deserve their space.’ Fucking flight wasn’t even full! Fuck your size-ist policy. Rude…”

I love me some Whole Foods’ vegan General Tso’s chicken, but I seem to have lost my appetite after reading that Whole Foods is discriminating against its fat employees by offering their thinner coworkers as much as a 10 percent additional employee discount.  Jezebel has the scoop.

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey explains the program in a letter, reproduced below. Apparently it’s part of an initiative to reduce health care costs, which is interesting since Mackey is against the health care reforms that would actually reduce costs for all people.

Note that Mackey knows BMI isn’t a perfect measure of health, but at least it’s cheap! Even more fun, though, is the poster for the new Healthy Discount program, breaking down exactly what BMI range his minions need in order to get various discounts on his Tofu Pups.

If your BMI is above 30, you’ll get to keep the original 20% employee discount, but you’ll paying more than your thinner co-workers, who can knock as much as 30% off. Because if public health research has taught us anything, it’s that reducing people’s buying power totally makes them healthier. Stay classy, Whole Foods.

(copies of the announcements are available after the jump)

To put this into perspective: to receive the maximum 30 percent employee platinum discount, a 5-foot-4-inch Whole Foods employee would have to weigh less than 140-pounds and a 6-foot employee less than 177-pounds.  That is, of course, assuming they also meet the attendant platinum levels cholesterol, smoking and blood pressure requirements.  And because this is all in the name of health, say that same 5-foot-4-inch employee meets all the cholesterol, smoking and blood pressure requirements of the platinum level but they weigh 175-pounds, which means that they have a BMI of 30.  Their added discount?  Nada.

Whole Foods is careful to point out that they’re not penalizing employees who do not participate or who do not meet their admittedly “imperfect” bio-markers for health — all employees will keep their basic 20 percent discount — but, in effect, they are penalizing these workers by selectively rewarding those who hand over their private medical files and meet incentive requirements.  Whole Foods CEO John Mackey cites an attempt to curb rising health care costs as the impetus for the program, but do the ends justify the means?  Ironically, the company’s plan to slenderize employees by dangling before them an organic carrot may actually work to increase health premiums in the long run.  Remember that many an eating disorder begins as a simple diet and desire to “eat healthy.”  Now consider that eating disorders alone cost U.S. companies about $3.8 billion a year in lost productivity.

By rewarding a BMI of 24 — a full point below what is considered the benchmark of “overweight” — Whole Foods is not-so-subtly indicating its preference that a lower BMI is better and ideal, thus contributing to an atmosphere in which employees who do not meet this standards are made to feel ostracized and targeted.  These blanket standards also ignore genetic, gender, age and ethnic differences across groups, thereby directing this sense of corporate hostility, however passive, toward those employees who may already be among the most vulnerable in the workplace: minorities, women and senior citizens.  Would we tolerate this kind of “incentive” if it were directed at other groups of workers?  Consider this: in at least half the states, marital status isn’t a condition protected by state or federal anti-discrimination laws.  Many other states, like Ohio, are “at-will” employment states, meaning that workers can be fired without just cause (so long as its not based on unlawful discrimination, which even then must be proven).  Whole Foods could also save a lot of money both in terms of productivity and health care costs if they offered similar incentives to employees who make the “lifestyle choice” to remain single, childless or who limit their family sizes to a number that’s more cost-effective for the company’s bottom line.

Absurd!, you gasp.  Unfair!  A person’s marital or parental status has nothing to do with their work performance!

Exactly.

Read the rest of this entry »

An Examined Life will continue this week, but I wanted to bring to your attention a very important matter with political implications for all Americans.  Last week the Supreme Court effectively deregulated the American electoral process by striking down a century-old ban against corporate spending directly on political campaigns in federal elections.  With that 5-4 decision, the court, in essence, has transformed the highest offices of the land into an auction to be controlled by the likes of Exxon, Big Pharma and Wal-Mart.  The ramifications of the decision cannot be overstated.  As the New York Times sums up in its excellent editorial:

As a result of Thursday’s ruling, corporations have been unleashed from the longstanding ban against their spending directly on political campaigns and will be free to spend as much money as they want to elect and defeat candidates. If a member of Congress tries to stand up to a wealthy special interest, its lobbyists can credibly threaten: We’ll spend whatever it takes to defeat you.

…The majority is deeply wrong on the law. Most wrongheaded of all is its insistence that corporations are just like people and entitled to the same First Amendment rights. It is an odd claim since companies are creations of the state that exist to make money. They are given special privileges, including different tax rates, to do just that. It was a fundamental misreading of the Constitution to say that these artificial legal constructs have the same right to spend money on politics as ordinary Americans have to speak out in support of a candidate.

This decision touches upon nearly every facet of Americans’ lives, but in particular for readers here, it has the potential to affect causes near and dear to our hearts.  A quick rundown of what may loom in the near future:

• Corporations like Johnson & Johnson, who have huge and multiple stakes in the weight-loss industry, have long fought to fight to have obesity classified as a disease, for if obesity is a disease or a mental illness, government and private insurance will be forced to cover products and treatments for its treatment.  Groups like the American Obesity Association–which is supported by the pharmaceutical industry and commercial diet-mongers like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig and also advocates obesity to be classified as a disease–have gone so far as to argue for “fat taxes” to be leveraged against fat Americans.  In 2008, Johnson & Johnson alone posted annual sales of $63.7 billion.  If the company directed less than 3 percent of those earnings to political lobbying, they will have spent more than the combined 2008 presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and John McCain — which in itself was more than double the amount spent by both candidates in the 2004 election.* With the court’s overturn on corporate electoral spending, how long before corporate interests masquerading in doctor’s smocks are allowed to dictate treatments and taxes that support only their bottom line ?

• Proposals have already been made to develop and adopt national standards for company-run “wellness plans” with tax incentives and credits given to companies based on whether or not their employees meet “wellness objectives” such as weight, blood pressure, blood sugar levels and other arbitrary levels of health as defined by people with no otherwise right to peek into your medical file.  Corporations, of course, like this proposal because it offers them a relatively inexpensive return on investment — simply adopt a government approved wellness plan and then either not hire or fire those employees who don’t meet the new government health standards.  With the court’s overturn on corporate electoral spending, how long before corporations lobby their candidates of choice to make this proposal the law of the land?
• Last year, Congress finally passed H.R. 1424, which among other things provides equity in the coverage of mental health and substance use disorders by ensuring that group health care plans do not charge higher co-payments, coinsurance, deductibles, and impose maximum out-of-pocket limits and lower day and visit limits (provided that they offer mental health coverage).  The bill is set to take effect this October.  With the court’s overturn on corporate electoral spending, how long before Big Health Insurance Corporations lobby Congress to enact laws and amendments that erode at this coverage

In response to the ruling, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fl) has filed five campaign six campaign finance bills to secure the people’s “right to clean government.”   The bills have names like the Business Should Mind Its Own Business Act and the Corporate Propaganda Sunshine Act. The first slaps a 500 percent excise tax on corporate spending on elections, and the second mandates businesses to disclose their attempts to influence elections. More details are available on the congressman’s Web site.  Grayson’s also created an online petition to support these bills moving forward and becoming law.  I urge you to lend your support in rescuing democracy.

* The candidates spent a combined $1.7 billion in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, according to Bloomberg.

Wow, Washington Post advice columnist Carolyn Hax really delivered the one-two punch to a smug, fat-phobic reader today!  The subject, adapted from a recent live chat, initially arose from a person who wanted to know how to deal with the occasional snide comment or hostile stare from others in an elevator directed at someone who uses the elevator to go up or down one floor.  This letter writer points out that they have friends with “invisible disabilities” and was torn in wanting to speak out.  Another reader chimed in and admitted to being one of “those” people and justified their indignation by self-righteously pointing out that “Obesity is a huge problem that’s going to continue to consume health-care resources. Why shouldn’t getting a little exercise start in the workplace?” Carolyn replies:

Why should it start in the workplace? Why do you get to decide when or whether I (or anyone else) should get exercise? Who says the person you’re judging is a lazy “obesity epidemic” contributor vs., say, an eating disorder survivor, or PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome) sufferer — and who says someone obese via behavior isn’t already facing the problem in the gym before work?

And, to name just a few hidden disabilities: multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, asthma, arthritis, tendinitis, heart conditions, recent illness or surgery . . .

And, to name a few reasons I’ve chosen to fly vs. walk: Maybe my feet hurt. Maybe the stairwells are hot and I don’t want to get sweaty. Maybe I’m late.

And maybe you don’t understand the definition of a toxic person. You’re taking your own choices, deeming them righteous and then making baseless judgments about other people based on that righteousness. Seriously smug.

The letter writer then replied back, surprised at Carolyn’s response, and suggested that she (Carolyn) was overreacting in her assessment of him/her.  Carolyn shoots back:

I think it was fair, or I wouldn’t have posted it. I’m glad you wrote back, and allowed me to explain: Those “silent judgments” are not harmless, they’re deeply polarizing, and dehumanizing. You just declared that fat people should take the stairs, without considering that maybe it’s not so simple and maybe it’s not your place to draw that conclusion.

And given the terrible schisms currently running through society, I think we all have a moral obligation to put our silent judgments under a microscope and ask ourselves whether we’re in fact part of the problem. Civility starts inside us.

A rich thing to say, I know, after what you probably regard as my uncivilized attack on you, but there’s one form of intolerance I’m willing to defend, and that’s intolerance of intolerance.

Word.

This is a post I’ve had simmering on the back burner now for a few months and am just now getting around to posting…

My older brother has always been a husky guy. He’s lost and regained the same 50-60 pounds or so several times in his adult life. Some months back, he went to see a new doctor for a check-up, which surprised me given Jim’s phobia of all things medical (he spent several weeks in ICU as a teen for severe asthma and pneumonia and has been doctor-wary since). Other than slightly elevated cholesterol levels, Jim checked out A-OK health-wise. Then the doctor decided to give him “the talk.”

Yeah, fat folk everywhere know what I’m talking about.

Jim said that the doctor seemed very nervous and after some fumbling, finally told him that his BMI was XX and asked if Jim knew what that meant. “Yeah,” said Jim with a laugh, “It means I’m fat.” If my brother is self-conscious about his weight, he doesn’t show it. He’s one of those kinds of people who will tell you that he’s a big fat cliche (sedentary, supersized fast food diet, regular soda drinker) and doesn’t apologize for it.  Jim’s thick-skinned attitude seemed to break the ice and the doctor then discussed his options, or rather thereof. “Have you ever considered weight-loss surgery?” he asked.  “You’d be a good candidate for…”  Jim stopped the good doctor mid-sentence. “I’ve lost weight before by eating healthier and exercising,” said Jim. “Weight-loss surgery isn’t even a consideration for me.”

I find it disturbing that the doctor’s first recommendation was not for Jim to improve his diet or exercise more, but rather to go under knife and rewire a perfectly functioning digestive system. Of course,the best way to a patient’s wallet is through his stomach — simply eating healthier and moving more won’t pay for the good doctor’s Lexus.

What was once considered to be a last, desperate option reserved only for those with life threatening weight-related health issues has now become so ubiquitous that at least one weight-loss surgical procedure (lap-band) is now considered to be an elective, cosmetic surgery and is being marketed by some facilities to people with just 30-40 extra unwanted pounds.  The National Institutes of Health states that bariatric surgery should be reserved for those with a BMI of 40 or more or those with a BMI of 35 and a weight-related co-morbidity, but “co-morbidity” here is a vague term that can be — and is — used to describe any condition from headaches to depression in order to circumvent the strict requirements insurance companies set for qualified candidates.  There were 220,000 bariatric surgeries performed in 2008 (in the U.S.), up from 205,000 performed in 2007.   Despite the economic recession, one healthcare market research firm estimates there to have been 350,000 procedures performed worldwide in 2009, which translates into sales of $517 million for surgical devices used in bariatric surgery, or a 21.6 percent increase over 2008 sales.  And the profiteers are hard at work devising new markets and demographics to drain. Health News Digest has a rundown of some of the disturbing bariatric surgery trends we can expect to see in 2010:

• Grand Opening: New Surgical Weight Loss Program for Teens — As the list of benefits of weight loss surgery in teens increases, we will see more surgical weight loss programs for teens popping up at hospitals across the map.
• Surgeons will be offering revision surgeries such as the transoral ROSE to people who have previously had weight loss surgery but have gained the weight back – a growing population both literally and figuratively.
• Weight Loss Surgery Not Just for the Obese — As studies highlight the curative powers of bariatric surgery, there will be a push to offer it to people with even lower body mass indexes (BMI). …if people who are just moderately obese also have diabetes, they too should be considered candidates. [Even the government isn't convinced that WLS for moderately overweight people with diabetes is beneficial.]
• Hourglass Figure Possible After Massive Weight Loss — More and more people are undergoing bariatric surgery to lose weight, only to be left with hanging fat and flab in visible areas. As plastic surgeons put on their thinking caps to better address these issues, expect to hear about many new procedures, including the corset trunkplasty. [Surgeons' fees average $1,400 to $1,800 for gastric bypass, but some bariatric surgeons also offer offer tummy tucks and other cosmetic procedures to remove excess skin, charging up to $14,000.]

No mention is made of a trend amongst doctors in recommending a major surgical procedure that carries a litany of serious medical risks, many longterm and including death, (up to five percent of WLS patients die in the first year, according to one doctor) as a fat patient’s first and only choice in healthy weight management, but it is, no doubt, a phenomenon not only occurring in just my brother’s doctor’s office.  Patient beware.

I shouldn’t complain about the weather, considering that Charlynn is braving subzero Wyoming temps, but the Arctic freeze — and the fact that it gets pitch black now by 5:30 p.m. — really puts a damper on my fitness routine.  During my eating disorder recovery, I made a personal commitment to only engage in physical activities that I enjoy – biking, rollerblading, hiking, powerwalking, gardening, etc.  So far, it’s worked fabulously for me with only one niggling problem: Most, if not all, happen to be outdoors activities.  For me, the benefits of exercise justify the means, so the past few weeks have seen me back at my company’s on-site gym, scaling the Stairclimber to Nowhere while devouring magazine after magazine in an attempt to keep my mind from exploding from the insanely boring monotony.  I was perusing my latest edition of Time the other day when I read this rather ironically amusing tidbit in the mag’s 10 Questions feature with Al Roker.  Roker, as you might recall, is the formerly rotund Today Show weatherman (and new fiction author) who underwent weight loss surgery years ago and unlike other stars (ahem, Star Jones), has been very public about his weight loss struggles.

Looking back, would you go through [gastric bypass surgery] again or try another method to lose weight?

Yes, I would go through it again, because I tried every other method. But I’m not an advocate for gastric bypass. It’s dangerous surgery; 1 in 200 people dies from complications. It’s a very complex decision that people have to make for themselves, not because somebody on TV made that decision.

I should note that I support a person’s informed decision to have weight loss surgery even though I’m wary of the often underplayed serious health risks of such procedures, so I thought Roker’s response to be an appropriate one given that he is one of the most famous of “success” stories.  Then I read the next question…

Any suggestions for the rest of us on keeping the weight off?
It’s an amazing secret: if you eat less and exercise more, you will either maintain your weight or lose weight. It’s crazy. I’ve just discovered this.

So, Al tried “every other method” to lose weight EXCEPT eating less and exercising more?  He just now discovered this “amazing secret” even though it’s been widely regurgitated now since the late nineteenth century?  Really?   I’m sure reducing his stomach to the size of a thumb and amputating and rerouting parts of his digestive tract so that he can’t absorb calories and nutrients has absolutely nothing to do with him maintaining or losing weight.  Nope, just eating less and exercising more.  That’s it.  *Headsmack*

Look.  I’m not saying that eating less and exercising more won’t result in weight loss.  I lost 175 pounds in a year during my eating disorder by following virtually that same recipe, albeit by taking it to extremes.  What I am saying is that for many people, the simplistic calories in/calories burned equation simply doesn’t always parlay into any significant or lasting weight loss.  I maintain an ever-growing list of more than a dozen peer-reviewed studies from the past two decades that show that virtually every attempt to make fat people thin without risky surgery has failed completely and utterly — very few manage to keep it off.   At most, even WLS makes fat people only less fat and even then the weight regain rates among those who go under the knife are high.   Why doesn’t “eat less, move more” work?  Twin studies and adoptive studies show that the overwhelming determinant of your weight is not your willpower; it’s your genes.  Just as people are now taller than ever, so too are people now fatter.  And as Gina Kolata details in Rethinking Thin, studies show that fat people who lose large amounts of weight often see their normal-functioning metabolisms crawl to the point where they are clinically in starvation mode.  There are other forces at play, too.  For example, new studies coming out are finally confirming what so many people who take antidepressants have suspected for years: that many psychiatric medications carry weight gain as a side effect.

I don’t have many regrets from my eating disorder days.  Sure, I would love to have that time back for more constructive goals and I am sorry for the strain my disorder placed on my family, friends and coworkers, but I realize now that I was suffering from a psychiatric illness and so I try to focus on staying well and moving forward.  I do have a few regrets however, one of which are the false hopes I gave to those who sought me out for weight loss tips and advice.  As I dropped size after size, so many family members and colleagues approached me, imploring and begging me to share with them my “secret” for weight loss.  I wasn’t about to tell them that I exercised for hours on end each day and ate nothing for days and even weeks at a time before exploding into an all-out binge fest that left me cradling the toilet and calling Poison Control because the Ipecac hadn’t come back up.  No, instead I chirped brightly, “Oh, I just eat less and exercise more.”  I hated the lies I told them, but I hated the lie I harbored even more.

I’ve since maintained a weight loss of more than 30 percent healthily in the past five-plus years — without amputating my digestive system — and what I have discovered is this:  Maintaining a weight loss is hard and it’s not so easy as eating less and exercising more.  I eat a healthy diet and workout several times a week and yet the specter of weight regain always hovers at the periphery.  Despite doing everything “right,” I’ve still had an unexplained weight gain of about 25-30 pounds in the past four years.  Does it worry me?  Sure, but only because of my lingering psychological hangups about weight and not for my actual physical health, which is stellar, according to my doctor.  There are still times when I will run into someone from my past who knew me at my highest weight and they’ll ask for weight loss suggestions or for my “secret.” I don’t tell them that I eat a healthy, low-glycemic vegetarian diet, make fitness a priority and indulge in chocolate whenever the craving strikes because while that may work for me, there’s no guarantee that it will work for them. My advice, hard-earned and time-tested, is always the same: “Obsess less, enjoy more.”

An historically black college in Pennsylvania is preventing more than two dozen seniors from graduating not because of their academic standing or disciplinary measures, but for the simple fact that they are fat.

Inside Higher Ed and the Associated Press reports that Lincoln University in Oxford, Penn. is threatening the group of 25 students with their hard-earned diplomas because they have not taken the “college-sanctioned” steps to show that they’ve lost weight or have at least tried.   This is the first class required to either have a BMI below 30 or to take “Fitness for Life,” a one semester class — that they are forced to pay tuition for — that mixes exercise, nutritional instruction and lectures on the health risks of the Big Bad Obesity Epidemic.  James L. DeBoy, chair of Lincoln’s health, physical education and recreation department, said he sees it as his “professional responsibility to be honest and tell students they’re not healthy” — and apparently to prevent them from graduating unless they comply.

Right.  Because fat people simply don’t know they’re fat.  And they’re not bombarded on a daily basis with an arsenal of the so-called health risks of being fat.  Why stop at fat people?  I mean, aren’t thin people just potential future fatties?  Why not push the obesity fearmongering and weight-stereotyping onto the entire student body?

Frankly, I don’t know what’s worse: the blatant discrimination shown here by the school, or the fact that a historically black college is the body enacting the discrimination.

An online petition has been started here. Send outrage to: James L. DeBoy, luhper1111@aol.com; President Ivory V. Nelson, inelson@lincoln.edu

You’ve heard of the Connecticut woman who was mauled by a 200-pound chimpanzee, right?  Charla Nash, 65, was visiting a friend last February when her friend’s pet chimp attacked her, tearing off her nose, lips,  eyelids and hands before being shot dead by cops. Nash later lost her eyes to infection and her facial disfigurement is such that she is a candidate for a face transplant.

Nash went on the Oprah show last week to reveal her disfigurement and share heartbreaking details on her life since the attack, including the fact that she now has to eat everything through a straw. The plus side of getting mauled by a chimp?  In a cringe-worthy response, Oprah told Nash that eating through a straw will help her keep her weight down.

Oh, Oprah.  I’ve certainly been known to blurt out awkward gaffes that I later obsess over and curse myself about for weeks after, but never have I stuck my foot in my mouth quite this far.  I’m sure Oprah was trying to defuse an emotionally-charged situation with humor, but to use her own weight woes as a point of shared commiseration with such a horribly mangled victim goes beyond the pale.

I would post a clip, but as as Newsweek’s Jesse Ellison discovered, that particular segment seems to have mysteriously disappeared from YouTube despite other clips allowed to remain.  When she asked Harpo if they had specifically targeted that clip for copyright violations, a spokeswoman simply replied, “Unable to confirm.” I think we can all confirm that Oprah’s response warrants a major FAIL.