Local independent bookstore recommends blaming fat people for poverty

[firecat]

Update January 15: I received an apology from the bookstore owner for this spam. (Visible in the comments.) I am therefore putting the rest of this post under a cut tag.


I just got an email from my local independent bookstore, of which I have been a supporter for many years. I'm not reproducing the exact email here but this is the gist:

---

Kepler's Books & Magazines recommends:
Stop hunger by losing weight

You can transform your over-eating in 8 weeks

Imagine a world in which there is no hunger or poverty.

What began as a trickle of visionary participants became thousands of
over-consuming people donating their money -- usually spent on
over-consuming -- to programs, charities and organizations whose mission
is to end the suffering caused by poverty and hunger.

Pounds for Poverty's?~D? mission is to convert self-indulgence into
service, empty calories into deep meaning and over-consumption into
opportunity for those suffering from poverty.
Mindfulness and Altruism-Based Health Improvement and Weight-Loss
Program

Shedding weight is a common New Year's resolution, and countless diet
plans focus on watching calories. But Pounds for Poverty, a new Palo
Alto-based weight-loss program, is taking a different approach - one
based on the idea that generosity, compassion and mindfulness can lead
to weight-loss success.

Two 8-Week Workshops in Palo Alto start in January
[details omitted]

What you will learn:

· A lifelong health improvement and weight loss strategy
· Tools for training the mind so you make better choices
· A transformative method for turning over-eating into
donations to charities

For free information and registration call (650) 926-9961 or visit
www.poundsforpoverty.com

Get healthy, Give back.


Elad Levinson has been a therapist in Palo Alto and workshop leader in
the field of stress and weight reduction for over 30 years.

---

I have two problems here, just to begin with.

1. The workshop has nothing to do with books. It is not an event sponsored by the bookstore as far as I can tell. So what are they doing recommending it?

2. I am so fucking sick of fat people being blamed for Western overconsumption of world resources.

Does the workshop creator realize that most fat people are poor?

Do they realize that the kind of American/Western world overconsumption that contributes to poverty has very little to do with "overeating" per se?

If they really want to raise a lot of money for anti-poverty programs, why don't they do a workshop called "Stop hunger by giving the money you were going to spend on your plastic surgery to an anti-poverty program"? or "Stop hunger by giving the money you were going to spend on an expensive car to an anti-poverty program"?

Bookstore contact info:
Kepler's
http://www.keplers.com
1010 El Camino Real
Menlo Park CA, 94025
(650) 324-4321

E-Mail
books@keplers.com

Corporate and Community Sales
bookvalet@keplers.com

This bookstore closed a few years ago because they were losing money but they were brought back to life as a non-profit. I'm surprised they would be feeling so flush in this economic climate as to risk alienate some of
their clientele by sending out such an offensive and non-book-related advertisement.

Comments

The OH's email to Kepler's

[firecat]

While I have become accustomed to all kinds of offenses committed in the name of obesity hysteria, I never expected to see one from Kepler's. Unless you send an apology to EVERYONE who got this message, I will put Kepler's on my boycott list and suggest to all my friends that they should boycott Keplers, too.

If you want to understand why I have this reaction, here's a good start:

http://www.bodypositive.com/argument.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_acceptance_movement

You could also read any of several books, I'm sure you can find them at the library, since apparently you don't stock them:

Laura Fraser, _Losing It_
Paul Campos, _The Obesity Myth_
Glenn Gaesser, _Big Fat Lies_
Linda Bacon, _Health at Every Size_

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

Gah.

That scrapes.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Oh, for fuck's sake. That makes just about as much sense as the whole "Eat your peas because there are children starving in India" argument.

If these people actually think that world hunger is caused by some people eating more than their share, so that there is literally not enough to go around, I don't want them to be involved in anti-poverty or anti-hunger charities.

And yeah, if they think that guilting fat people about world hunger is a valid form of therapy... well. I pretty much have no words.

[necturus.livejournal.com]

I'm puzzled because even though I've read the text behind the cut twice, I can't find anything in it that suggests blaming fat people for poverty. But all the other folks commenting here see it, so it must be there. But then, "overconsuming" to me means living in the exurbs, driving an SUV two hours to and from work every day, and replacing one's TV every year -- not pigging out on donuts.

To an east coast person like myself, most people west of the Mississippi are almost overconsumers by definition. There's not enough water in most of the west to support all the people living there, after all, and only by draining various lakes, rivers, and Pleistocene aquifers can they keep going as they do.

[firecat]

The title of the workshop is: "Stop hunger by losing weight," not "Stop hunger by giving up your SUV," and all the forms of "overconsuming" mentioned in the ad have to do with eating. That's what adds up to blaming fat people for poverty, in my mind.

I am probably more likely to go there than some people, because I've seen countless other examples of fat people being used as symbols for overconsumption.

Your other example of overconsuming also blames individuals for what I think is a systemic problem. (The vast majority of water use in California is irrigation for crops, not use by individual homes.) It worries me when people do that. You know, "If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." (Thomas Pynchon)

[leback.livejournal.com]

To an east coast person like myself, most people west of the Mississippi are almost overconsumers by definition.

Funny, I feel the same way about all the fossil fuels that people in the Northeast burn while trying to control the climate in their places of habitation.

Re: The OH's email to Kepler's

[leback.livejournal.com]

This is outrageous -- thanks for passing it on. And my compliments to your OH; that's a great message.

Re: The OH's email to Kepler's

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I was thinking we could protest if I lived closer.

"Don't be lax! Get the facts!" and pass out our own fliers.

Re: The OH's email to Kepler's

[firecat]

I have the word out to some local folks.

[saluqi.livejournal.com]

I don't know about the US, but in Australia one of the symptoms of irresponsible consumption is the fact that we waste vast amounts of food. It's staggering. A more sensible approach would be to encourage people to really think about what they are purchasing and whether they are realistically going to use it.

I've started shopping each lunchtime for what I'm going to cook for dinner, otherwise our fridge ends up with a vast compost pile in the bottom of it. Fortunately the dogs take care of any meat that isn't used.

[firecat]

I'm sure there is a lot of food waste here. Your solution sounds like a good one. My solution is to eat a lot of frozen prepared foods, which takes care of the food waste problem but generates packaging waste. :/

[stefanie-bean.livejournal.com]

Ugh. Good luck with getting them to heel.

[necturus.livejournal.com]

I agree with you, especially considering some of the houuses around here. On the other hand, a fair amount of megawatts gets spent air-conditioning cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas every summer.

[marea93.livejournal.com]

Ignorance loves to take the ball and run. I hope enough pressures is placed on them that they pull the event.

[innerdoggie.livejournal.com]

Wow, "Pounds for Poverty" looks like the dumbest newage idea I've seen in a long time! Who thought it up?

Here's their website:
http://www.poundsforpoverty.com/

The founders talk a lot about "mindfulness" and "peace". One of them even says, "In my search for inner happiness, I knew I had to make peace with my body. Part of the practice is accepting what is. My body is large, gains weight readily and holds onto it easily." But then she goes on to say that meditation and mindfulness will stop "overconsumption".

Maybe you could talk some sense into them about their notion of "overconsumption"?

[nolly.livejournal.com]

I mostly agree, though I think they're thinking more of folks with a three-Frappucino-a-day habit and similar junk-food-overconsumption. I don't see a categorical "All fat people are overconsumers and contributing to world hunger" message.

[firecat]

No, but they are specifically targeting people who think they need to lose weight - "pounds for poverty," not "potato chips for poverty."

[nolly.livejournal.com]

Sure. The base assumption seems to me to be "People who eat too much "junk" food will lose weight if they eat less of it." rather than "Fat people eat too much junk food." The second is offensive; the first does not offend me, even if it's not true for all people. (I think it probably is true for most people, but could be wrong.)

[firecat]

I disagree with you about the base assumption of the workshop founders. I think the base assumption is "So, you are fat, right? It's because you eat too much. Take this workshop and you will lose weight."

I didn't read every single page of their web site, but I did not see anything about junk food, I only saw stuff about overconsumption and weight loss.

If the workshop name were "Stop eating junk food and end hunger" rather than "Lose weight and end hunger," I would agree with you.

[firecat]

Yeah...see one of the things that bugs me is that as far as I can tell, it's not an event sponsored by the bookstore at all. So why did the bookstore spam me with it? (I was on their mailing list.)

[nolly.livejournal.com]

I've only read what you posted here. "Empty calories" says "junk food" to me; YMMV.

[firecat]

I have a mindfulness meditation practice. (It's not helping to calm me right now though.)

"Ooh, take this workshop and you can lose weight!" is a message rather at odds with mindfulness, to my mind.

Maybe some of the Health at Every Size folks I know will use this as an opportunity for education.

Maybe I should start a mindfulness workshop, "Stop being mad at the obesity epidemic!"

[innerdoggie.livejournal.com]

I liked your letter a lot, and second the Health at Every Size folks and your mindfulness workshop.

Kepler's Email

[(Anonymous)]

I want you to know that I completely understand why you are upset about this email sent to you yesterday. The email should not have been sent.

Pounds for Poverty is a member of our local business organization – Hometown Peninsula – and all of the members attempt to support each other whenever possible. In this instance, however, the email didn’t receive the usual scrutiny prior to being sent to the Kepler’s list. I know that people don’t need anything clogging up their inboxes and that our customers rightly expect that emails from us pertain to books and author events that we sponsor. Please accept my sincere and personal apologies and know that we will not send emails of this nature in the future.

Clark Kepler

[leback.livejournal.com]

Even if their assumption is as you describe, and even if it's relatively broadly true, I think that for most people, there will *not* be a link between reducing junk-food consumption and reducing the type of socially-harmful overconsumption that they're pointing to. Frappuccinos are a good example of a type of junk food that's particularly expensive, but in general, health food (much less "diet" food) is at least as pricey as most junk food -- and for most people, I suspect that just cutting back on junk food and otherwise leaving their diet unchanged isn't going to work, because then they won't be eating *enough*. My experience is that even people who eat lots of junk food don't commonly eat more food than other people; frequently, we just eat different food. When I'm eating sodas and cookies all day, I'm still eating just about enough to fill me up -- I'm just eating those things *instead* of healthy snacks. Ditto for when I pig out on fast-food burgers and fries -- it's that in place of things like chicken sandwiches and pasta salads. If I skipped the junk food *and* didn't eat a healthy meal, I might lose weight, but not healthily. And anyhow, you'd probably have to lock me up somewhere to make it stick over the long term, because however enlightened one's motivations are, being continually hungry is *difficult* -- even hunger strikers and people on religious fasts usually don't sustain such things for extended times, and often wind up compensating for the deprivation later.

Granted, it's possible that I'm wrong about what is common, and there are lots of three-frappuccino-a-day drinkers who are ordering them even when they're already well-fed -- but it seems improbable, given that most people lose a lot of their interest in food once their more chemically-based cravings are satisfied. I do suspect that there is a somewhat common tendency to order large portions and keep eating past the point when one is full, because one feels obliged to "clean one's plate," and the same may apply to people drinking the venti frappuccino when the tall would suffice to satisfy whatever chemical cravings are motivating them to order it. However, I'm also guessing that the most effective way to curb these tendencies is not to couple them with weight-loss objectives (which tend to encourage the kind of undereating that often provokes later over-ordering), but to stay within a health-at-every-size framework (or here, perhaps, a social-responsibility-at-every-size framework?) and focus on improving the experience of eating, rather than on changing eating habits as a means to weight loss.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying I think this "Pounds for Poverty" thing is a great idea and will be wildly successful for everyone who participates -- I don't think that. I'm just attempting to explain why I don't find it offensive.

That said, some of the key code words to me are "empty calories" -> junk food, "self-indulgence" -> comfort/non-hunger-driven eating, and "mindfulness" (in this context) -> choosing nutritious foods over junk foods. There are other phrases and factors (like the apparent target audience), too, that give me the sense that this program, which may or may not result in weight loss for any given individual, is about choosing carrots over cookies and such, and probably local/organic carrots at that.

[firecat]

I don't think you need to find it offensive. But I find it offensive for the exact same reason that you don't. I think if it's about choosing carrots over cookies then it should explicitly say that. The title and the URL suggests that it is about losing weight, and therefore target it specifically to people who think they are overweight.

I am just as offended when school lunch programs or food stamp programs start a "fight childhood obesity" campaign even if what they are actually doing is providing more nutritious food choices to everyone.

Why does all this have to be done on the backs of fat people? It's not just fat people, or people who think they are fat, who benefit from eating nutritious foods. So why target only people who think they are fat?

[leback.livejournal.com]

But that's the thing -- carrots (especially local/organic ones) cost *more* than cookies. The link between unhealthy eating and spending too much money on self-indulgence just doesn't hold; not in a society where people typically spend more money on being thin than on being fat. So even on your reading, I find it troublesome that they're implying a particular link between junk-food consumption and lack of virtue. I think greed in general, and high levels of spending for personal enjoyment/benefit in particular, are just as characteristic of healthy eating as of unhealthy eating, but I think that saying "Imagine a world in which there is no hunger or poverty" and then talking about eating more healthily as a route to such a world implies otherwise.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

And I don't think you're wrong to be offended.

I think they're really targeting people with significant disposable income, and they see "think they need to lose weight" as something common to much of their audience, so they've seized on it as a way to motivate people.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

Depnds on where you shop and what kind of cookies you buy. :)

But I also think they're targeting people with enough disposable income that it's not actually about saving money. As I said above, I think the weight-loss aspect is mostly an excuse to draw people in, give them another reason to give money while making it still all about them.

[leback.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I suspect you're right. I just don't like the cultural memes that it reinforces in the process.

But now I want a cookie. Must go attend to that. :-)

[men-in-full.livejournal.com]

The e-mail that was initially posted clearly said "Stop hunger by losing weight." They weren't targeting the three-latte-a-day person who's spare in frame. It's specifically a weight-loss program which was being advertised, even though the *thin* person wrapped up in overconsumption could obviously change his or her life as well. (I'm assuming here that no one is expecting the thin person to try and lose weight.) When it's tied to weight loss, the implication is that overconsumption is only an issue if you are fat.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

You appear to see absolutes where I do not.