firecat

The Heat is a buddy cop movie set in Boston starring Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy. I thought it was really funny, and the humor does not rely on fat jokes (McCarthy is fat), fat stereotypes, sexual assault or harrassment.[1] There are some jokes based on appearance, and a lot of jokes based on class.

Normally I wouldn't see this type of movie in the theater but I did because wanted to reward the producers for making a film of this type that stars women.

There are spoilers in the comments.

[1]ETA: Add "against women". There were jokes about sexual harrassment of men.

Imagine the subject line sung to the tune of "Chain of Fools."

( Contains mockery of fat hatred and sexism. Also contains the marvelous neologism ’thinsplain’. )

Via Body Impolitic, a TedxWomen video featuring Lynne Hurdle-Price, a plus-size African-American woman, calling for an end to the "war on obesity".

Because, in her words, "wars, even metaphorical, create hate, not love."

http://tedxwomen.org/speakers/lynne-hurdle-price/

(TW for discussion of weight humiliation and emotional eating)

http://www.fatnutritionist.com/index.php/food-and-exercise-are-not-matter-and-anti-matter/
or
http://fatnutritionist-feed.dreamwidth.org/23501.html
( about movement/exercise, mostly positive )

National Public Radio (NPR) has a web page asking for comments on the topic "What does it mean to live in a nation where one out of every three people is obese." (The nation in question is the United States.)

http://www.publicinsightnetwork.org/form/apm/0d2dd143dca7/what-does-it-mean-to-live-in-a-nation-where-one-out-of-every-three-people-is-obese

The lead-in to the comment section says:

Americans are getting bigger. And it's not just changing our health, but our nation's infrastructure, spending habits, economy and state of mind. What changes have you noticed to the way we live? 

Tell us here. Your response will help shape a national reporting project on obesity.

Here are the comments I left them.

What conversations do you have - or avoid having - about weight?
( Read more... )

Before the presidential election, I was disappointed to see Obama commenting that doing away with "obesity" would go a long way toward solving US health care problems. Some fat activists have been communicating with Obama and emphasizing that focusing on "obesity" is not beneficial; if disease prevention is a concern, then better results would be obtained by focusing on Health At Every Size (HAES) principles, including encouraging movement and whole foods.

I've mostly had my head in the sand about this because I don't trust Obama to get this. But I noticed that Yahoo had a news story a couple of days ago: "Obama wants skinnier feds".

But I read the article pretty closely and I didn't see one single quote attributed to Obama that mentioned weight. The article described the practices of seven "work force innovators who were meeting with the president to discuss their best practices." Only two of these descriptions mentioned weight: Microsoft was reported to have an "obesity program" and Safeway was reported to have a “Healthy Measures” program that was "making employees accountable for their weight."

A recent article in the New York Times, "Congress Plans Incentives for Healthy Habits", mentions "Congress is planning to give employers sweeping new authority to reward employees for...weight loss..." Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa is one of the authors of a proposal that would encourage employers to develop programs that focus on "obesity" among other things that are believed to be related to health. Obama is mentioned only once, and not in the context of saying anything about weight.

On http://www.healthreform.gov a search on "obesity" turns up 16 references, most of them from reports on state by state "Health Care Community Discussions." But there are no documents coming out of the White House mentioning it, at least if the search form is working properly.

On http://www.whitehouse.gov today there is a blog post "Health Care Reform: Urgency and Determination." It links to a statement by the president about health care reform. One paragraph made reference to "prevention and wellness programs," but the main principles Obama asked Congress to emphasize were:

first, that the rising cost of health care has to be brought down; second, that Americans have to be able to choose their own doctor and their own plan; and third, all Americans have to have quality, affordable health care.

I'm nervous because "prevention and wellness programs" often focus on weight, but so far I'm not seeing any fat-bashing.

Unfortunately although Obama might be using HAES language, the health reform programs that actually get implemented might not use HAES principles. As such programs begin to be implemented fat activists are going to have to be vigilant to encourage the people developing them to turn away from using changes in weight and BMI as symbols of health improvement. They are lousy symbols of health improvement because they just aren't directly related to health the way changes in exercise habits, say, can be.

This is awesome.

http://www.food-for-thought-pyramid.com/

Designed as a tongue in cheek response to and criticism of the FDA’s Food Guide Pyramid, the “Food for Thought” Pyramid offers an alternative approach to enhancing your health. The “Food for Thought” Pyramid will help you become more conscious of the bigger picture of your health.

http://www.food-for-thought-pyramid.com/articles/pyramidsample.pdf

You can buy it as a poster.