The title immediately bleeped on my fatdar, so I looked up the book on Amazon and watched the video clip there. Lancaster insists her book isn’t a weight-loss memoir, but the video, book description and reader comments suggest otherwise. As she writes:

“To whom the fat rolls…I’m tired of books where a self-loathing heroine is teased to the point where she starves herself skinny in hopes of a fabulous new life. And I hate the message that women can’t possibly be happy until we all fit into our skinny jeans. I don’t find these stories uplifting; they make me want to hug these women and take them out for fizzy champagne drinks and cheesecake and explain to them that until they figure out their insides, their outsides don’t matter. Unfortunately, being overweight isn’t simply a societal issue that can be fixed with a dose healthy of positive self-esteem. It’s a health matter, and here on the eve of my fortieth year, I’ve learned I have to make changes so I don’t, you know, die. Because what good if finally being able to afford a pedicure if I lose a foot to adult onset diabetes?”

In the video, the 40-year-old Lancaster says that she enjoyed healthy self-esteem and good confidence and never had a “compelling reason” to lose weight until she went to the doctor and was “essentially delivered a death sentence.” Her somehow non-weight-loss book claims it documents her attempts to lose weight in a healthy, non-dieting manner through improved diet and increased exercise with a trainer named Barbie who looks like her doll namesake, animated.

The book certainly represents a departure from traditional weight-loss memoirs in that it doesn’t promote conventional forms of dieting – “Weight Watchers can kiss the fattest part of my ass” is a personal Jen Lancaster axiom. And it’s very refreshing to see someone who is very confident in herself, regardless of her body weight. I haven’t read the book, but it sounds like Lancaster is trying to practice something like intuitive eating, while yet restricting sweets and junk food. In a sense, food restriction of any kind is counterintuitive eating, but I also recognize that intuitive eating is a process, one in which you sometimes have to forego certain foods to determine what it is your body and mind really wants and needs. Reader reviews also suggest Lancaster rejects the good food/bad food ideology and argues as I do, that it’s not food itself that’s healthy or unhealthy, but rather our relationships with food.

But I’m also disturbed by some of the things I’ve read and heard about this book. What screams out most to me is the equation of fat with a “death sentence.” Granted, I am not privy to Lancaster’s medical records and I recognize that for some people, body weight plays a role in some health issues, but I also have to wonder if Lancaster’s doctor isn’t like one of the dozens of fatphobic doctors spotlighted on the blog First, Do No Harm. You know the kind: Walk in with a respiratory infection or even a cancerous tumor and walk out with a prescription for Weight Watchers.

In the video, Lancaster introduces Barbie and they go on in-depth about how grueling the workouts are and the shenanigans Lancaster pulls to get out of exercise. We also see Barbie insultingly holding a donut in lieu of a carrot in front of a sweaty Lancaster pounding away on the treadmill. Folks, I cannot stress this enough: Physical activity should be something you want to do, not something you have to do. And it should be done not in the name of weight loss, but because it makes you feel stronger and healthier, both mentally and physically. If you find yourself making excuses to get out of physical activity, perhaps its time to reevaluate your activity. If contorting your body in machines reminiscent of medieval torture devices isn’t your bag, find something else to do that you enjoy, like walking or gardening or playing with your kids.

While I still think the book to be decidedly a pseudo weight-loss memoir, it is a weight-loss memoir of a different nature. Says Lancaster in the video:

“I am not giving anyone a prescription, do A, do B, then C and you’re gonna’ get thin. The basic equation is you eat less and you move more and you lose weight But that’s not everything. Through movement and through eating less, I discovered what was at the core issue of my weight. And until you look inside yourself to discover the core of what it is that’s keeping you heavy, you’re not going to be successful.”

Yes, the “basic equation” may result in weight loss, but this isn’t true for all people nor is it always healthy. And the “core issue” of why we weigh what we do isn’t always something we can control or even change. It is assumed that fat people are fat for a reason: they’re emotional eaters, compulsive overeaters, binge eaters, they don’t care about health or the environment, they’re lazy, they’re gluttonous – all convenient assumptions which indicate some kind of emotional flaw or moral shortcoming to explain away what many perceived as an unnatural physical state. I’m not sure how long Lancaster has been working out, but considering she’s been able to pen a memoir about her experiences, I assume it’s been a while. And yet if you look at her photo, you’ll notice she’s still what medical definitions would probably classify as obese. Perhaps if Lancaster delved deeper into her “core,” she might discover that what is “keeping her heavy” isn’t immaturity or overeating or sloth, but rather forces of a different, perhaps genetic nature.

Criticisms aside, I don’t want to entirely dismiss Lancaster, either. Many of us use food as vice or in a reactive way to cope with stress, depression, and trauma, which, in turn, breeds destructive thoughts and behaviors. Why food? It’s ubiquitous, it’s legal and it’s relatively cheap. Her suggestion to examine our own relationships with food is an important one, although I think we ought to do so without the expectation that weight loss will naturally follow. For more on intuitive eating, see here for a great list of tips.

Has anyone read this author before? Am I off the mark with my conclusions? Do you see Lancaster’s slightly less self-loathsome and fat-hating memoir as representative of the direction weight-loss memoirs are going in? If so, is this a good thing?

I’m a culinary dullard. Seriously, I can’t even boil an egg properly. But my husband and I are total Top Chef addicts. Last night’s episode combined challenge with altruism: Serve up a healthy, gourmet boxed lunch to Chicago’s finest police recruits.

I come from a family steeped in emergency services culture: My mother worked as an EMT and later, a 911 dispatcher. When I was a teenager, I rode with my local police department as part of a police Explorer program and continued to ride throughout my college years (my first major was criminal justice). Because of the nature of the job — no lunch breaks, high stress, sporadic work hours — most cops I knew ate fast food while on the job.

So, the challenge to serve cops up a healthy meal is certainly admirable. But what talk on healthy eating wouldn’t be complete without also a healthy dose of fear-mongering? “As you know, the nation is facing an epidemic of obesity and diabetes…,” began host Padma. The camera then panned over a table choking under an array of clumsily-constructed burgers and ketchup-drenched French fries, which Padma explained to be the fare normally consumed by the recruits.

The insinuation was not lost on viewers: Fast food contributes to obesity and diabetes.

There are studies that purport fast food to be a contributing factor in obesity and diabetes, while other studies find no such evidence to support the claims - this is yet another example of that niggling thing they call the “obesity paradox.” But one thing is clear here and that is the inherent class assumptions and contradictions: A 500-calorie fast food burger contributes to obesity and diabetes, and yet a 500-calorie mushroom risotto stewing in a sauce of fatty cream and whole butter does not?

Barry Glassner brings up the issue of class in his The Gospel of Food. He quotes a “prominent researcher” at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services who asked to remain anonymous:

“There’s a lot of subtle and not so subtle bias. From going to all these talks about the obesity epidemic, you would think that McDonald’s and other places where the ‘wrong’ sort of lower-class people eat are calorie-dripping hellholes, and expensive classy restaurants serve only fat-free vegetables and no desserts.”

“No one ever uses Starbucks as an example, but a Frappucino is as oversized and calorie-laden as anything McDonalds can dream up. But the person giving the talk probably goes to Starbucks him- or herself and wouldn’t be caught dead at McDonald’s.”

But here’s the real kicker: The dozens of police recruits who purportedly eat all that fast food? Are thin. And diabetic chef Sam Talbot, himself a former Top Chef contender (and show heartthrob), who served as guest judge of the challenge? Also thin.

Did anyone else catch the show? What are your thoughts?

Gym-goers who look out of shape aren’t the best role models, but they might actually inspire you more than people with buff bodies. University of California, San Diego, researchers found that women who exercised next to plump peers worked out two minutes longer than they did when working out next to fitness freaks. Lead researcher James A. Kulik, PhD, thinks the women wanted to show off next to (or avoid becoming like) someone less fit, but they felt demoralized when next to a woman who was more toned.

What strikes me most about this snippet is that because the “non-plump” gym-goers are compelled to exercise more, the tone of the brief seems to condone and even promote the behavior, regardless of the destructive motivations driving it (it was included on a page with other weight-loss advice and tips). Both hypotheses — the woman who wants to “show off” in front of a fatter woman or the woman who uses her “plump peer” as the yardstick by which she measures her own self-worth — indicates a degree of self-insecurity and self-anxiety, feelings that an extra two minutes on the stairclimber won’t ever whittle away.

I looked up the study and found it ironically enough to be published in the July, 2007 edition of the International Journal of Eating Disorders - abstract here. Some additional context: The study included female undergraduate students (who may be more susceptible to this kind of behavior) and sought to measure the the effects of peer comparisons in a naturalistic setting or on objective behavior one body-image perceptions. The results?

Exposure to a fit peer had undermining effects on women’s body satisfaction and exercise duration, whereas an unfit peer produced no compensating greater body satisfaction but did elicit longer exercise duration relative to controls.

The thrust of the study measured body dissatisfaction, and so it’s inclusion in an eating disorders journal isn’t strange. What is curious is the “health” magazine’s positive slant on it as evidenced by its very title, “Fitness Freaks bad for your figure.” Maybe a more appropriate title would have instead been “Low self-esteem bad for your mind.” Instead of recognizing the negativity revealed in the study published in an eating disorders journal, the magazine chose to appropriate aspects of it to further promote “health” and weight-loss. Once again, what would be considered disordered and even mentally ill for thin people is liberally disseminated as healthy advice for fat people. Who needs pro-ana sites when mainstream media normalizes disordered eating and behaviors?

My gym membership now is through our company’s on-site gym and I’m usually the only one working out in the late evening hours. My last gym membership where I worked out with other people was during the heydays of my eating disorder, when I habitually compared myself against every other woman anyway, so, my perspective may be a bit skewed. I do acutely remember one particular instance, though, from a few years ago, partly because I journaled about it. I usually ended my workouts with my own hillbilly version of yoga in a darkened, unused aerobics room. I was stretching on the bar when another, thinner girl about my age came in and started stretching also. I don’t think she was paying me the slightest bit of attention, but I soon began mimicking her movements and deliberately stretching farther than she and longer in a physical and mental game of endurance. She soon left and I “won.”

Have your workouts ever been subject to influence by the woman working out next to you? Do you feel like others pay any attention to what it is you’re doing at the gym?

Polly, of course, was one of four women featured in Lauren Greenfield’s Emmy-nominated documentary Thin, which follows the womens’ experiences at the Renfrew Center, a residential facility for the treatment of eating disorders. I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch the film, although I do have the book it is based on, but many people who have seen the documentary have shared here that they really empathized with Polly and felt a connection, even through television. Polly’s life - and even her death - has left a lasting imprint upon many people.

Polly’s sister commented on my eulogy post here, suggesting that though Polly suffered incredibly in the past year of her life, her family is comforted by her show of faith. One of Polly’s sisters, Staley, has continued to update readers of Polly’s old blog. In her post today, Staley shares some Bible verses the Williams’ family has found especially comforting. She writes:

Although our hearts miss her, we find ways to rejoice. She still touches so many people today. For that, we can rejoice. Polly is no longer in pain–for that, we can rejoice. Polly is finally free of the torcher of the ed. and the saddness, for that, we rejoice. Polly shared her life w/ us for 33 year, for that, we rejoice.

Faith can be a potent and powerful force, one with regenerative healing powers for both mind and body. And when I speak of faith, I don’t mean to always imply a god figure, although many do find comfort in God or Allah or Vishnu or Shiva. Faith can take many forms and while some may find solace in religion, others may choose to vest their faith in something more tangible. Personally, I credit Buddhism as one of the strongest forces leading me to recovery from my own eating disorder. Buddhism’s emphasis on self-analysis and introspect, combined with its insistence on the cultivation of the mind and body to be an instrument of goodwill encouraged me to examine what it is I truly believed in, to discover the inner me, and to treat my body as kindly and compassionately and I seek to treat others. I’m not Hindu, but I also found the Bhagavad Gita to be one of the most inspiring and beautiful things I’ve ever read, and I’m also fond of Khalil Gibran, whose writings I also classify as spiritual in nature. I hope Polly’s own faith provided some semblance of reassurance to her as she made her final decisions.

Polly’s family has made available commemorative bracelets in honor of Polly through the Gail R. Schoenbach Foundation for the Recovery and Elimination of Eating Disorders (F.R.E.E.D.) at a cost of $5. The non-profit organization provides financial support for individuals to seek out eating disorder treatment. To order or make a donation, visit here.

Has Polly’s life and death had an impact on you? Or, has your religious or spiritual faith helped you in eating disorder recovery or body size acceptance? Share your thoughts below.

Congratulations to Harriet Brown, who announced this week that HarperCollins has purchased the rights to her next book, Brave Girl Eating. The memoir follows the Brown family’s struggle to cope with daughter Kitty’s anorexia. You can read Kitty’s story here. A brief summation of the book:

When Brown’s daughter developed anorexia at 14, Brown refused to accept the dismal track record of traditional approaches to eating disorders; this is the story of her family’s triumph over the disease, weaving together a parent’s perspective, a journalist’s point of view and issues of neurobiology and genetics. A frequent contributor to the New York Times, Brown wrote about her family’s experience in the Times Magazine in 2006.

I’m still accepting blogs to be added to the Eating Disorders Digest feed. If your blog addresses eating disorders at least in part and you want to be added to the list, leave a comment here with your blog RSS feed address. Note: I have had to delete a blog off the list that ends every post with a running count of the blogger’s current weight, calories consumed, and exercise undertaken. While this feed is not intended to be anti-reality, I also want it to be as safe a place as possible for those struggling with eating disorders to go to. Detailing your own struggles with an eating disorder is fine, but I think posting a running count of your stats and weight loss goals aren’t appropriate for this feed, either. Another note: if you’d like to be added to the feed, please embed the feed on your site first. The feed is intended to be a cross-collaborative project, for both bloggers and readers of our blogs. You can view the feed here. Also, if you haven’t already, join the Eating Disorder Studies Yahoo group.

Size-zero models form a convenient coathook upon which the media like to blame many an eating disorder. But for me and others like Naomi Hooke, the development of our eating disorders has very little to do with ultra-thin models. Hooke explores the forces that led to her development of anorexia at age 11 in the British Independent - finding it had nothing to do with size-zero models.

Anorexia has often been perceived as a quest for model-like beauty, as a teenage fad or as a diet gone wrong. It has even been described as a lifestyle choice. Seldom is anorexia acknowledged as the life-threatening medical condition that it is… Sufferers are often presumed to pour over the pages of glossy magazines and starve themselves in their aspiration to become glamorous, thinner-than-thin sex goddesses. From my own experiences and from those of numerous other eating disorder patients I have met, I can say unequivocally that nothing could be further from the truth. Beauty has very little to do with eating disorders, and the desire to be thin is merely one of many symptoms. Rarely can a single “cause” be identified.

Although the fashion industry may be rife with anorexia, the majority of eating disorder patients have not become ill through catwalk influences. And nor are they models.

And finally, go and read 18-year-old Katie Muller’s fantastic essay “F.A.T.” over at the other TheFWord site:

There is no good reason why women should be so appalled by their natural size and inherent store of fat (women naturally have a higher percentage of fat on their bodies than men) but there is a simple reason why they are. We live, no matter how much we like to pretend otherwise, in a man’s world. We are still, in a million small ways and plenty of big ones, submissive, convinced of our inferiority and full of contempt for our own sex. And to fit into the small space left for us in this man’s world, we have no choice but to shrink.

Shrink to fit, we are told, and reap the glorious benefits of success, money and even love. And when that never happens, reap the benefits of dying exhausted and being buried thin.

Muller’s conclusions on why aesthetic beauty standards are more stringent for women than for men fall in line with my own research interests: Women are encouraged to change their bodies so they don’t have the time nor the effort to change the world. As Miller explains:

Self-starvation is encouraged because as long as fat is seen as the enemy and ‘beauty’ the prize at the end of the rainbow, men are safe and women are trapped. Suddenly, from this perspective, eating disorders seem like an obvious solution, a practical reaction to society’s demands. They are so perfectly suited, in fact, to the job of undermining women that it would not be unreasonable to suppose they had been invented for that very purpose.

Muller, who also struggled with anorexia, understands what so many women in similar situations have come to understand: that “thin enough” is simply a journey, never a destination reached; that one can never be “thin enough” or “pretty enough” or “good enough” because the standards constantly shift, become higher and harsher. As she explains it:

We are all bashing our heads against the same brick wall. What are we trying to do? Break down the wall? It is not working is it? Perhaps that’s because we don’t need to break down the wall at all. We just need to stop bashing our heads against it.

Sage advice, indeed.

Comments? Critiques? Leave your thoughts on the stories above in the comments below.

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I submitted an editorial to my university’s student newspaper last month to coincide with Body Acceptance Week on the glamorization of eating disorders in mainstream media. They never responded, so I checked the paper to see if they ever printed it. In lieu of my article, they printed a piece written by a well-intentioned student, I’m sure, on why “scrawny boys” should not wear muscle t-shirts. I sent an email off to my old journalism professor: “Am I THAT old and out of touch with the student body?”

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Conversation last night between my husband and I while watching college Jeopardy!:

Me: “I’m technically a student; I should totally go on college Jeopardy.”

Brandon: “No, I think they have an age limit.”

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Today I am a guest panelist at a Women in Journalism conference sponsored by my alma mater. I step out at lunchtime to see the campus green transformed into a glittering college festive playground, with girls in bikinis and guys in trunks splashing in water despite the chilly temps and kids bouncing on moonwalks and doing some weird kind of spasmodic contractions to a cacophony they call music. Co-sponsors of the event? Hooters and Trojan condoms.

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I feel old, but then again, I’ve felt old for quite some time. This is why turning 29 and even the looming prospect of 30 doesn’t bother me. In fact, I see birthdays not as a milestones passed, but as a chance to reflect on where we’ve been and where we’re headed. As I look over the past decade, I’m incredibly proud and a bit awed at the personal transformations within myself and at what I have achieved and I’m excited at what the next 10 years will bring.

A decade ago saw me moving out of my parent’s house and into my first apartment. I’ve been financially independent since and even now after marrying my husband. We own our home and try to live sustainable and cruelty-free lives. I’ve voted in every major election and supported local organizations doing great things. I managed to complete two degrees with honors, all the while attending classes full-time and in the summers and working a professional, full-time job. I’ve achieved great professional success and my career brings me great personal fulfillment and allows me to pursue my passions. I have cast off the shackles imposed on me by my family and their gendered, racist, homophobic belief systems to become someone who tries to recognize and eschew discrimination and oppression of any form. I struggled with an eating disorder, but have overcome it and in the process, come to know both myself and what I stand for.

So, today I plan on finishing this conference, going home and changing into my comfy sweats and relaxing with my husband, my kitties and a big piece of chocolate birthday cake and some Cherry Garcia. After all, I’ve got a busy decade ahead of me.

I say this to preface why it is seeing vegan General Tso’s chicken on Whole Foods’ deli bar sent me squealing in delight, dropping my bags and speed dialing my husband.

General Tso’s chicken was my dish before I went vegetarian and I haven’t had anything like it since. Until now. The texture was a bit off, but overall it’s pretty tasty and as close to the real thing as I’m going to get, unless, of course, my appetite triumphs over my morals. Whole Foods also has an awesome vegetarian meatloaf and vegan dal and a stellar curry tofu chicken salad. (And no, I am not a paid shill for Whole Foods nor have they promised me my body weight in their vegan General Tso’s chicken for extolling all the ways in which I love the chain, but on the chance any Whole Foods execs are reading, let’s talk).

My husband, the avid Slate reader, sent me a link to one of the most hilarious stories I’ve read in a good long while, “Meatless like me” by Taylor Clark. The story is a must read for anyone who’s vegetarian/vegan and those meat-eaters who know and love ‘em anyway. For those of you who happen to think us all to be a collective mass of tree-hugging, Kum ba ya-singing, hand-holding, Peta fanatics, think again. Writes Clark:

Imagine a completely normal person with completely normal food cravings, someone who has a broad range of friends, enjoys a good time, is carbon-based, and so on. Now remove from this person’s diet anything that once had eyes, and, wham!, you have yourself a vegetarian. Normal person, no previously ocular food, end of story.

It might surprise you, meat-eaters, that many veggies, including myself, find Peta to be as obnoxious as you do. I’ve written before on why it is I won’t join Peta, and recently so have other vegetarians within the fatosphere. Perhaps the antics of Peta radicals is why, whenever I offer up my vegetarianism as simple fact, I have apologetic carnivores falling all over their leather shoes disqualifying their dietary choices. Clark articulates it much better than I, though:

Which leads me to a vital point for friendly omnivore-herbivore relations. As you’re enjoying that pork loin next to me, I am not silently judging you. I realize that anyone who has encountered the breed of smug vegetarian who says things like, “I can hear your lunch screaming,” will find this tough to believe, but I’m honestly not out to convert you.

I’ve met my share of smug veggies at the local Earthsave potlucks I used to attend years ago and trust me, I am not one of them. There were the pure raw foodists, who looked disdainfully on the vegans for molesting potatoes to a sad, mushy pulp. The vegans, in turn, looked down on the vegetarians, as if we drank milk right off the cow’s teat and like Rumpelstiltskin, stole the first-born eggs of every poor mother hen. You could always spot the vegetarians in this crowd, especially the recently converted: We were the ones standing about looking a bit bewildered, wondering where to set our macaroni salad made with eggs and mayonnaise among the melee of raw, vegan, lacto-ovo, and ovo marked tables.

So, how does this entire self-obsessed vegetarian rant and article relate to the larger theme here? It doesn’t, really, but I can make it fit in some creative ways:

Lesson 1: Vegetarianism isn’t a weight-loss diet. Vegetarians like food as much as any meat-eating foodies; we just don’t eat foods that once had a face. I’m talking to you, Max & Erma’s, and your burgers that come with fries, while the charred frisbee you call a veggie burger is served with a side of limp lettuce.

Lesson 2: Refuse to feel guilty for the food choices you make and try not to make others feel guilty for the food choices they make. This goes for both herbivores and carnivores: I won’t inform you in gory detail on how exactly that factory-farmed bovine you’re biting into lost its life or if it might contain Mad Cow Disease, if you won’t make jokes on how I can go pick my dinner from the flower bed or lecture me on how we’ve naturally evolved to dine on flesh.

Lesson 3: Lighten up. ‘Fess up you hardened meat-eaters: Did you read the Slate article and chuckle even once? Did a smile cross those same lips that also delight in the meatiness of a good steak? Humor can diffuse even the most divisive of topics. As they say, you win more bees with (vegan) honey than you do vinegar.

Bon appetit.

*Not, really; it’s just a bad play on an “Apocalypse Now” quote. I never liked bacon, even when I did eat meat.

I was diagnosed with both depression and an eating disorder within the past decade and despite the advances in mental illness awareness, I acutely felt a stigmatization with both. Raising funds to benefit mental illness research is much needed, but NAMI Walks also help to raise awareness about a problem still largely shrouded by shame. As the organization’s website states:

We may not be able to measure it, but we can sense that the tide of public opinion is shifting. Awareness brings compassion; compassion brings an openness to understanding and knowledge. Understanding and knowledge leads to empathy and a sense of community with one another. We are walking down that road, one WALK in one community, one step at a time.

I registered for an account on the website to sign up for the walk and was surprised to find a lot of resources at my disposal. You can customize your own homepage with news and updates on issues in mental health relevant to your interests or by disorder/condition, medication, by state and area, and type of news, like new research or legislative action. It’s a great resource for both researchers and those most intimately touched by mental illness.

How about you?  Do you think mental illness continues to be stigmatized?  Why or why not?  If so, what can we do to help eliminate the shame and bias surrounding it?

How does he set to disprove obesity stereotypes? He plays into them by setting out to show how one can lose weight while eating a fast food diet. You can watch the trailer below and other clips on his website.

I’m straddling the fence on this one. On one hand, it’s hilariously funny and represents a departure from the usual fat fear-mongering while also disproving tired stereotypes. But on the other, it’s still promoting weight-loss and a particular means of weight-loss, namely a low-carbohydrate/high-fat diet. In his effort to dispel stereotypes of fatty and fast foods while demonstrating how one can lose weight and improve health by cutting carbs and sugar, Naughton is still reinforcing the good/bad food ideology. Still, I don’t think we ought throw the baby out with the bathwater. Given the dominant socio-political clime of the day, is it better to work with people than against people, while still appropriating channels and spaces for our own means? What do you think?

We’re both really interested in the representation of women in mass culture, particularly in fashion and in women’s magazines. Discussion led into how the standards have continually shifted and become higher and harsher for women. And then Amy told me this little anecdote and gave me permission to share here.

In 2006, Amy took a year off school and had to apply for health insurance. I assume she didn’t have a job in which health insurance was available. Amy was denied for health insurance through Blue Cross/Blue Shield for two reasons: She had a preexisting condition of migraines which had required hospitalization twice in 25 years; and she was declared overweight.

Amy stands 5′0 inches and at the time, weighed 125 pounds. Her height and weight placed her BMI at 24.4, which falls within the range the government has deemed to be average.

Amy said she wrote a strongly worded appeal, emphasizing her healthy diet and lifestyle and castigated Blue Cross/Blue Shield for imposing unrealistic standards. She added that she is especially sensitive to the verbiage because as a dancer, she’s seen many of her classmates and friends go on to develop eating disorders. Unfortunately, Amy only received further form letters reinforcing her denial.

“Could you imagine if I wasn’t as confident?” asked Amy. “Being denied health care could have put me right over the edge.”

I have heard of people being denied health insurance for being overweight, but I often hear of these cases at the upper end of the weight stratum, usually with the obese or morbidly obese. The fact that one can be well within average weight standards and yet be declared overweight and denied health care is mind-boggling.