What if no one were bigoted and ignorant? April 30, 2008

Shirley Skeel over at MSN has apparently never met logic.
There’s an article today on MSN titled “What if no one were fat?” I am not linking to it, because I refuse this kind of thinly disguised hate-speak any traffic whatsoever. It’s running on MSN’s front page, so it is getting enough traffic already.
Ms. Skeel is playing a little game of what-if, in this case, imagining a world with no fat people. Apparently, in her mind, fat people are to blame for all the ills of society. She’s pretty creative with the blame, actually.
Her thesis:

Imagine a lean and healthy America: The savings on medical, fuel, food and other costs would be enough to give every U.S. household more than $4,000.

Interesting concept, no? The extra $4000 particularly intriguing. Here’s a problem though – she has two variables in the equation that she has combined into one. Any 10th grade Biology student can tell you that in a well designed experiment, you can only test one. So for this little scenario to be feasible, we need to test what happens if everyone is (a) “lean” OR (b) “healthy”. Ms. Skeel has opted to combine the two, clearly assuming that the two are synonymous. Logical fallacy #1.

Some of the theoretical benefits of no fat people…

We’d save billions of dollars in gas. Airlines would double their profits. A dearth of diabetes and other diseases would save billions of dollars more — and put thousands of doctors on the street. McDonald’s would sell not Big Macs but little steamed chicken snacks — or watch its profits melt away. Productivity would rise, potentially creating tens of thousands more jobs or higher wages all around.
Add up the savings up on health, food, clothing and efficiencies, and you could buy a professional home gym for every U.S. household — or hand each $4,270 in cash.

Fallacy #2 — Only fat people eat junk food. She’s pulled out one of my very favorite fallacies here, along with the fat-hater’s favorite scapegoat, McDonald’s. The idea, of course, is that only fat people eat junk food, and without all us fatties buying big macs all the evil fast food restaurants would fade away. It’s pretty clear from this statement that Ms. Skeel has never actually been in a fast food restaurant, or she would be well aware that the distribution of body composition in the average McDonald’s bears a striking resemblance to the distribution in the general population. In fact, I have no evidence, but I would argue that the patrons of fast food restaurants is more heavily weighted toward the THIN segment of the population, since a higher percentage of fat people in the general population are on a diet at any given moment.

Savings on fuel for cars and airlines due to their lighter loads would top $5 billion, according to industry studies. Researchers say each overweight driver burns about 18 additional gallons of gas a year, or just under a billion gallons altogether… As for oil imports, they’d be dented by less than 1%.

I have no idea how that 18 gallons per year figure was derived, so I can’t argue against it. It does seem, however, that since the overall impact on oil imports would be the very tiny less than 1%, that fat people do not have any significant impact on energy use. Fallacy #3

Plus-sized clothing costs 10% to 15% more, so shoppers would save $10 billion on shirts, pants and dresses…Clothing makers could then afford to offer more variety in hip and bust sizes, rather than asking every woman to squeeze into an hourglass shape.

Fallacy #4 — fat people are responsible for the high price of clothing. I don’t think Ms. Skeel has ever taken an economics class, or she would understand that prices are heavily influenced by competition. There are fewer companies in the plus-size clothing market, therefore there is less competition, therefore prices are higher. The easier solution would be to expand the industry so that there were more clothing options for ALL women, benefiting people of all sizes.

Because 3,500 calories translates into a pound of fat, somewhere along the way, America’s 227 million adults have eaten 16 trillion calories too many. That’s 14 billion Big Mac meals, with fries and a soda. Eliminate those and you wipe out $81 billion, or McDonald’s past four years of sales.

Fallacy #5 — 3,500 calories = 1 pound, anytime, anywhere. This is based on the simplistic calories-in, calories-out model that any doctor, biochemist, or tenth grade bio student could tell you is not accurate, and yet people still insist on using it. Every person’s body uses food differently, and two people could easily eat the same diet and be of very different body composition. Math is a beautiful thing, but humans aren’t bunsen burners.

If Americans were slim and maintained their weight by eating 150 fewer calories a day (half a slice of pizza), that could snip roughly 6.5%, or $20 billion a year, off U.S. farmers’ sales (assuming no extra exports). Bob Young, the American Farm Bureau’s chief economist, says farmers would cope. They’d switch some land from fattening seed oils and sugar beets to fruits and vegetables. Or they might grow corn for ethanol, or even open a hunting resort.

See above re: calories in-calories out. Also, since when are fat people the only ones who eat seed oils and sugar beets? This is a nice combo of #2 and #5.

The medical costs of obesity-related problems such as diabetes, stroke and heart disease run near $140 billion, or more than 6% of all health-care costs.

Fallacy #6 — Correlation equals causation. The assumption here is that obesity causes those diseases, when in fact it may be the other way around, or the two might have a single unrelated cause that results in their correlation. Unless elimination of obesity involves the elimination of all people who exhibit a disposition thereto, it is fallacious to infer that elimination of obesity would automatically result in a reduction in correlated diseases. There’s a little of fallacy #1 in here too, the idea that thin = healthy.

On a side note, that might be the most obnoxious sentence I have ever written.

Productivity in the workplace would jump as people took fewer sick days and spent less time at work feeling unwell.

Fallacy #6 rears its ugly little pointed head again. Ms. Skeel fails to account for any other reason fat people might take sick days or be less productive (if that is in actuality the case), like, say….dealing with bigoted fat-hating jackasses and discrimination at work?

“Jenny Craig would be very unhappy” if everyone were slim, says Rand’s Sturm. And so she would, along with the rest of the $55 billion weight-loss industry.

If everyone were genetically predisposed to be thin, then this would be the case. But if the “slimness” were due to constant societal pressure to be thin, then the diet industry would probably become even more of a giant money-sucking vortex of evil than it is now.

On top of these savings would be billions of dollars more. Manufacturers and builders wouldn’t have to make doorways bigger, car seats wider, furniture stouter. Some even argue that global warming would slow a mite, as consumption of gas, energy, fertilizer and methane-producing cattle decreased.

Fallacy #2 again, this time saying that only fat people eat beef.
The other problem with this statement is its incredible bigotry. Since getting rid of all the fat people would do such wonderful things, why stop there? How about we eliminate every single person on Earth who has unique needs to save money?

Ooops. That’s all of us.

Research has shown that people who are not obese marry more, are paid more, are promoted more, sleep better and have better sex lives. We don’t yet know whether people earn less because they’re fat, or whether they’re fat because they earn less. Researchers suspect it is the former because there’s some evidence of discrimination against the obese.

I am impressed that Ms. Skeel admitted that discrimination is a possibility, because it interferes with her use of fallacy #6 again. She is of the opinion that obese people marry less, make less, etc (if those statements are even true), simply because they are obese, and never seems to make the connection that the reason for that correlation might just be the kind of idiotic hateful stereotypes she is herself perpetuating.

Here’s a little game of what-if — what if writers bothered to do some research, rather than dumping a bunch of old, tired stereotypes into an article and calling it news? What if people thought about what they were saying before they said it? What if we learned how to accept one another and stop marinating in hate?

Forget a world without fat people — I like my idea better.

My very own bloggy challenge April 28, 2008

At any given moment, I have 3 or 4 blog posts floating around in my head.  I think of things all day long, but I get busy, or I dismiss them as too insignificant or redundant or stupid, or I forget, and to be honest, the amount of stuff I am not writing is starting to make me sad.  So I have decided to challenge myself.  For every day in May, I will write a blog post titled with the Dictionary.com word of the day.   Go me!

In Memoriam April 16, 2008

I wrote this a year ago today. It’s not the greatest poetry, but I feel the need to share it. My prayers are with the families of all the victims of the VT shootings today.

Requiem for Innocence

Today in Virginia a record was broken.
Not the Olympic athlete kind, or even the pie-eating-at-the-county-fair kind.

This record must be measured on the scale of horrors,
In bodies lying lifeless
names on a list

Today the wind howls and moans outside my window,
nature mourning what man has done

Headlines proclaim “deadliest campus shooting in history”
but headlines tell half-truths,
As if it is already history,
As if the deadliest part was not yet to come

Today I marvel at the mundane,
at the people, dry-eyed, in the grocery store and driving their cars,
I marvel, and yet I am among them, dry-eyed.

Naivete is unpardonable, so I have been told,
but I am naive, I choose to be
the kind of naive that cannot fathom the depth of this darkness
the kind that is still surprised

Today is a sob, holding its breath;
And tomorrow
tomorrow
tomorrow
All our tomorrows must grieve.

Judgey-wudgey was a bear. April 15, 2008

There are two ways to look at every person.

Way number one is all about judgment. You see, say, a person standing on a corner holding a “will work for ____” sign and decide that he is either some sort of shyster attempting to swindle people out of their money or he is lazy and is homeless because he refuses to work. In this scenario, you drive by and never give him another thought.

Way number two involves what I’ll call sympathy, or giving people the benefit of the doubt, or maybe compassion. In the sympathetic way of thinking, you drive past that same man and realize that yes, he might be a con artist, but he also might be legitimate. He might have medical problems that keep him from holding a job. He might be struggling with unmedicated depression. He might, he might, he might…so you go through a drive through and hand him a cheeseburger, or you give him the wrapped up leftovers from your $15 dinner, and you thank God that as hard as your life might be, chances are it is easier than that guy’s.

I’ve spent spent a lot of my life in mode #1, as do many of the the people who were most influential in my formative years. It’s easy when you come from a place of privilege (and yes, white middle class is definitely privilege) to believe that everyone else’s problems are no one’s fault but their own, and therefore solving those problems is as easy as 1-2-3 magic. Homeless? Just get a job and *poof* all will be well. No one would ever put it that simply, but that is the expectation in many minds. Homeless because you are lazy, then no more lazy, ipso facto no more homeless. If all fat people are fat because they eat too much and exercise too little, then they just need to eat less and exercise more. It’s like magic!

Judgment mode is such a simple place to be. It’s an easy way to think. Life is complex, but it is far less mentally taxing to disregard that complexity and judge based on clear-cut, black and white rules. It is far easier to pigeonhole than it is to think.

It’s really too bad that the easy road is so exceptionally flawed.

Life is not simple. Not all homeless people are lazy. Not all fat people eat junk all day. Not every thin person exercises and “eats right”. For every A student who studies and works hard for her grades, there are two coasting on raw intelligence and charm. The universe is indescribably complex, and human beings, who both have free will and are constantly acted upon by forces beyond their control, are even more complex. Complexity leaves no room for judgment.

One of the hard truths of human existence is that none of us know as much as we think we do, and judging other people makes us feel for a moment as if we were omnipotent. In that moment, when I decide that a fat woman is lazy or stupid or eats 549538797 calories in donuts a day, or when I see someone’s blue hair and facial piercings and decide they are a troublemaker and a junkie, I get to pretend I am God. When I withhold judgment, it means admitting to myself that I don’t know, and that is humbling and scary. Showing compassion requires great strength of character, and a willingness to step beyond yourself that most people choose not to exhibit.

That willingness, that not knowing, and learning to be ok with it, allowing other people to be themselves and giving them the benefit of the doubt when their life differs from mine, letting people out of the boxes we put them in and then destroying the boxes themselves, is a skill we as a species must learn. Otherwise, we can talk all me want about fighting racism, sexism, sizeism, and a million other isms besides, and for every one we destroy, two more will rise in its place. Compassion is our only hope.

It deserved its own post. April 11, 2008

On my last post, Atlanta Kane wrote:

It really isn’t realistic to pretend that being fat is ok. You might not be as fat as some, but why is it an issue you feel a need to blog about if it is such a trivial thing? Do you really think that every person who doesn’t find fat to be appealing is lacking in character? Do you really think that most fat people are far from honest about their weight? The troll might not be very polite, but some of his points are valid, most fat people do tend to blame anything but themselves for their weight, then, although they don’t like it themselves, object to others who don’t like it either. Why is it such an issue in the media? Are they all trolls too? Why are medical insurance premiums increasing? You are doing the same thing, hiding from reality and blaming others for your failings. If you are having so much difficulty losing weight, try praying for a change. God will help you build the resolve to stick to a diet and keep up exercise. When was the last time you went to church? It is a funny thing, but not many really fat people attend church, maybe there is a lesson in that. Think about it. Atlanta

 

I started to respond in a comment, but my response got long, and so many of the things she brought up deserved to be addressed, that I thought I would take it up a notch.

AK isn’t really a troll.  She’s sort of a troll, but not full-fledged.  She’s not nearly as obnoxious as some, and she strikes me  as genuinely concerned and not just evil.  She’s a troll-let.  

First of all, no one in the FA movement is pretending anything.  Fat IS OK, just like short is ok, tall is ok, blonde is ok…do I need to go on?  That opinion isn’t coming off the top of our heads, it’s based on thought and research and study and analysis.  It’s obviously not a super-popular viewpoint, and it’s not the kind of thing one just picks up off the street.

I’m not sure what she means by “as fat as some” — I’m not as fat as some people, I am fatter than others.  So is every other person in the whole world.

Fat acceptance is not trivial at all, because there are people out there who believe strongly that fat is so un-ok that they think fat people deserve to be maligned, mistreated, abused, and discriminated against.  That is why I write about FA — because injustice pisses me off.  I get just as ticked off about other injustices, and I fight some of those in other ways.  I choose to blog about FA because it is pretty dear to my heart, since it is the form of hatred I have most often experienced.

Someone’s personal preferences are not generally a matter of character.  I am not particularly attracted to blond guys, and that is not a reflection on whether I am a good person.  What is is if I start saying “OMG blond people are disgusting and stupid and they don’t deserve to be treated like human beings” and insisting everyone else share my preference, that is reflective of my lack of character.

KA is right, there are lots of fat people out there who hate themselves, and I will tell you a secret — it’s because we have been told to our whole lives.  Women who grow up in highly misogynistic cultures often believe they are worthless, because that is how they have been taught.  Children of abusive parents grow up to marry abusers because they think, on some level, that they deserve to be abused.  It is exceptionally difficult for people to move beyond the heart lessons they learn from their families and the culture around them.  

I hate to burst your bubble, but the vast majority of fat people do blame themselves for their weight, even if they find out there is a definable medical reason for it.  Once again, it is the power of long-term messages — we are all told, over and over and over, ad nauseum, that all it takes to lose weight is hard work and willpower.  The truth is, it is the rare fat person who hasn’t tried over and over to lose weight.  Many fat people have self-control that would make a monk envious.

Why is it such an issue in the media?  Well, call me a conspiracy theorist, but I would say it is because there is a 50-billion dollar per year juggernaut determined to keep obesity panic going, never mind the costs to people’s dignity and health.  Medical insurance premiums are increasing because of the increasingly litigious culture we live in and the rising prices of pharmaceuticals.  Blaming a major economic change on one group of people is exceptionally short-sighted and simplistic.

I hate to burst your bubble again, but I am far from hiding from reality.  I look at myself every day in the mirror.  I buy my clothes, so I know what size I wear.  I work out, so I know exactly how far I can run, how long I can pushmow without taking a break, the ache in my arms after a 90 minute dance class, and how much weight I can lift.  I buy my food, so I know how much I eat.  I am not blaming anyone for anything except their own ignorance and asshattery.

The biggest difference between me and KA?  I don’t think being fat is a failure, because I don’t think being thin is something to achieve.  I was once told that depression happens when you choose to make a goal out of something you can’t control.  There are lots of goals that can be achieved — running a certain distance, learning to cook, getting a degree — but being thin isn’t a good goal, since the majority of body composition is determined by genetics. 

I’m not having difficulty losing weight, because I am not trying.  I am trying to learn to accept myself, and love myself, and push past the barriers that my culture has set up that tell me I do not deserve to live a full life because of my body.  It is a difficult road, but worthwhile.

It’s really the last bit of the comment that made me give it its own post;  that God-and-fat connection that is so ubiquitous in some circles.  There’s a story in the Gospels about a blind man Jesus healed.  The disciples asked Him who sinned, the man or his parents.  That question seems strange to us now, because we know the medical reasons behind blindness, but in first century Judea, it was assumed that if you were poor or diseased, you must have done something to make God angry.  That’s why the Beatitudes were so revolutionary — Jesus was saying that the people deemed “unblessable”  by the culture of the time were blessed by God.  There is more than a bit of that kind of judgement in this last statement — fat people must not be good Christians, or they would not be fat.  I question how many churches KA has been to, and how much time she has spent looking for “really” fat people.  I attend a church with a congregation of about 700, which is not a mega church but still pretty big, and the distribution of fat people there is pretty typical of the demographic of people who attend.  It’s sad that Christians can be the most judgmental and misogynistic people, and they do it all thinking they are speaking for God.  

I have not gone longer than three weeks without going to church since I was born.  I went to a Christian college.  I spent about 20 years praying for God to help me be thin, but instead he chose to heal me of the sin of self-hatred that had consumed me all that time, and I sincerely believe he led me to the FA movement.  I think His way was better. 

And KA, FYI, as of this minute, it has been 43 hours, 32 minutes since I was in church. 

Mad Fat Woman 1, Troll 0. April 10, 2008

Long, long ago, I had another blog, one where I mostly rambled about random stuff, but I also started writing about fat acceptance there.  One of my very first fat posts was called Diary of a Mad Fat Woman.  Earlier today I was re-reading some of those old posts, and lo and behold, I found out I had trolls!  I don’t know how I missed it earlier.  SInce I am feeling rather snarky today, I feel the need to respond to their comments, but first, the text of the original piece, for your reading enjoyment…

 

I am fat, and I am angry. Unlike most of the women I know, I am not angry at myself for being fat. I am angry at my culture that says that because I am fat, I am not an acceptable human being, that somehow I should feel compelled to apologize for my body. I am angry that a beautiful woman like Kate Winslet is more famous for being unapologetically “fat” (she’s not) than for her amazing talent, or that any woman over size 4 has a better chance of getting struck by lightning than getting an acting job. I am angry that there are eight year olds who say they would rather lose a parent than be fat. According to a poll by Prevention magazine, Fifty-eight percent of women and 54% of men say they’d rather be unemployed than gain 75 pounds. And 63% of women and 55% of men say they’d rather be poor with no extra pounds to lose than rich and substantially overweight. Twelve year olds are getting liposuction, and no one bats an eyelash. I have sat and listened to size 2 17 year olds talk about how fat they are, and watched some of those same girls pass out in my classroom because they have not eaten in three days. Americans’ obsession with weight has gone from sad to ludicrous, and there seems to be no end in sight. If it were just a matter of appearance and social pressure, it wouldn’t be such a big deal. I have no problem telling someone who thinks I am ugly to kiss my fat ass. But the problem is bigger than that (no pun intended). According to the Chinese government, my weight makes me an unfit parent, and the British government is on its way to agreeing. Not too long ago, a teacher in New York was fired for being obese. 40% of doctors surveyed in the UK said fat people should be denied treatment;, and 93% of HR professionals say they would hire a candidateof “normal” weight over a obese person with equal skills and experience. Clearly the problem goes much deeper than just appearance. The bottom line is that as a culture, Americans think fat is disgusting, and fat people are disgusting by extention, but most people aren’t willing to admit it, so they hide behind words like “healthy” and “fit” when the word they want to use is thin. The message is crystal clear: be thin, or else no one will ever love you, you will never be pretty, and you will never, ever be accepted as a worthwhile human being. I am not the only one; sit in a room full of talented, intelligent women, and sooner or later the conversation will venture into the realm of dieting or weight loss. It makes me sad to have seen so many of my friends throughout my life wasting their energy obsessing over their weight. If women spent the same amount of time and energy trying to change the world as we do worrying about our weight, we could end poverty, create world peace, and eliminate starvation. Our culture is being ruled by the iron fist of the diet industry, and we, the fat people, are being squeezed to death. Don’t believe me? Do the research. This is a good place to start. Almost all obesity research is funded by those somehow connected to the weight loss industry. Marketing 101: to sell a product, you have to create a need for your product. What’s the easiest way to create a need? Fear. Clearly the weight loss industry people have taken Marketing 101, and now they are taking our whole culture on a ride designed to make us hate our bodies and buy their lies, and then their products. I can’t change culture, and I cannot make anyone else comfortable in her body. I know that there will be some people who read this and get offended. I realize that by taking this stand, and refusing to conform to my culture’s artificial beauty standard, I may face rejection, or ridicule, or I may spent the rest of my life alone. That is a risk I have to take. I agree with Abi Stone of Pretty, Porky, and Pissed Off when she says of fat people like me “these are the bodies we have and we are sick of a lifetime of feeling shame and trying to alter them through unhealthy practices”

Hi, my name is Erin, I am fat, and I am not ashamed. Above all, I am not sorry.

 

 

Now, for the trollousity…

 

Originally posted by anonymous coward, my thoughts in italics.

Well, here goes.

I do NOT hate fat people. Yes, fat people. Because that’s what they are. FAT.

No shit dude.  That’s why we don’t call ourselves purple or something.

However.
I am angry about their condition. I am angry about most of their predispositions. I am angry about the fact that 98% of the fat people of America blame it on “medical conditions”, heredity, “my thyroid gland”, or one of a myriad of other excuses.

It’s sickening, and it’s wrong. Take off the damn feed-bag, get out, walk around. Take some fucking PRIDE in yourself. Allow yourself to be what was intended for the human body – a fairly efficient, lean, toned machine. Not some big, hulking, heavy-breathing, sweaty olfactory menace that can’t wipe his/her own ass, but can reach into the refrigerator to grab another Krispy Kreme. I don’t care who you are – you have NO excuse to be fat unless you have PROVEN MEDICAL DOCUMENTS that actually outline your family medical history with some sort of disorder that causes such things – like Diabetes, or an actual Thyroid problem. NOT just saying “Yup, I have Diabetes ~Stuffs food into mouth~, I just can’t help being so fat” or “I can’t help my weight, it’s my Thyroid gland ~dives into cake~”…

 

I think we should play a rousing game of count-the-ridiculous-stereotypes in that paragraph, or at least a game of fat bingo.  My favorite part of this section is how he assumes that not only are fat people fat, they are all LIARS.  

I guess to summarize this…fat people are one of the things that’s going wrong with America. This IS an epidemic, people. You ARE unhealthier for it. No one in their right mind thinks you’re pretty, because let’s face it, you’re diseased. (And I’m not talking about Heart Disease, though that’s probably there too.) You’re either diseased with a compulsion to eat, or a compulsion to be lazy…and keep eating. Point is, it takes activity, lifestyle, and (a lack of) 300 extra pounds to be healthy or attractive.

It’s an EPIDEMIC!!!!!   OOOOOOOOOOOOOOH NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Dude, AIDS is an epidemic.  Malaria is an epidemic.  The “obesity epidemic” is an artificially created moral panic designed to sell weight loss products and suppress women.  I’ll tell you like I tell my students — don’t believe everything you see on TV.

Sweetpea, let me explain the definition of risk factor and correlation.  Maybe not though, I think I might be wasting my time.  I will, however, point out the idiocy in linking healthy and attractive.  Attractive people aren’t always healthy, and healthy people aren’t always attractive, because health is pretty objective (that means you can measure it pretty consistently) and attraction is COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY SUBJECTIVE.

I don’t give a fuck WHO you are, you can not say honestly that you can look at some 450-lb fat chick (or guy, to be fair) and be like “Oh, baby.” And part of this might be due to stereotyping over the years, models and such, yes. But Jesus Christ. Don’t blame it on the healthier, thinner people just because you can’t walk through fucking Dahl’s without jumping on a motorized cart that’s SCREAMING because of your weight.

 

Again with the “fat people are ugly” point of view.  I love the assumption that every person in the whole entire world shares the same aesthetic sense.  If you don’t find my body attractive, that’s your prerogative.  I don’t find your brain attractive, and who knows if I would like the rest of you.  Attraction is subjective, and no one is asking you to be attracted to fat people.  In fact, the only person telling anyone who to be attracted to here is you.

 

Don’t blame it on the models, don’t blame it on anyone but your own damn self – thin people are thin for a reason, fat people are fat for a reason.

 

****  DING DING DING!  **** You got something right!  There is a reason thin people are thin and fat people are fat!  We in the scientific world have three letters for it….DNA!

 

I’m 5’6″, 170. 17% body fat. And I eat healthily, do my share of work, etc. Who else do you know who actually maintains a healthy diet, works every day, actual physical activity (not opening a candy wrapper, mind you) – and is fat?

Ummmmmmmm……let me think……oooh, so hard…..uhhhhhhh…. ooooh!   oooooh!  I know!  I know!    ME!   And Kate!  This chick comes to mind.  And all those other women out there who practice HAES!

I know, it hurts to have your little stereotype bubble popped.  I bet you think all poor people are just lazy too, right?   And women who get raped were asking for it, hunh?  

 

In contrast, look at all the slobby, nasty, just plain fucking disgusting heifers of the U.S.A.. It’s what we’re getting known for. Lazy, good-for-nothing-except-weight-in-the-back-of-your-pickup fucking fat people. Bitching about it, on top of it.

Now we get to the real reason this guy is so angry (I assume it’s a guy, but I suppose women can be assholes too).  Not only did I dare to be fat, I dared to speak up for myself.  I am supposed to be somewhere being ashamed, not standing up for what I believe.  

I implore you to go to Europe and take a look at the population en masse, and then compare it to America – no wonder people live longer, healthier lives over there…most all of them don’t walk around with an extra 5 pounds of fat hanging from their face.

Any person with five pounds of fat on their face undoubtedly does have a medical issue.  

The only reason I say all of these things is because yes, I used to be fat too. Not excessively fat – because I realized what was going on, and quite frankly, was disgusted with myself – but I got up to 220lbs, on a 5’6″ frame. Hardly ANY muscle, just “blegh.” Then, I decided to Hell with that. I sweated, I worked, I ran, I wrestled, I lifted weights…and now, I’m happy with my body. I know I can go up a flight of stairs without risking a big fat embolism, or bend down and pick up something without getting so winded that my lungs want to just hara-kiri.

Eureka! Another reason behind the hate!  This person hated HIMSELF when he was fat, and he is pissed that I get to be happy with my body without torturing myself!  I would love to hear from him in 5 years to see if he is part of the 3% that keep the weight off, but he probably won’t, and will be all wrapped up in hating himself again.  Poor guy. 

 

So yes. Some of you just may have some sort of disability. Some of you may have a thyroid problem, Diabetes, or whatever else may cause Obesity in certain people – but seriously. Grow the fuck up already, those of you who don’t. (Or, actually, shrink down.) Unstrap that feed bag, take off that Mu-Mu, get on a goddamn treadmill or lift weights or something, make yourself an acceptable example/specimen of your species – not as if you’re from the planet Shoulder Rolls. Be better than you are. Lose some damn weight, quit bitching about no one liking you for being your fat, greasy, over-eating, health-problem ridden, medical disaster-area asses.

Once again we land in the giant morass of sterotypes, plus his real feelings — despite his earlier statement to the contrary, this guy does hate fat people. We aren’t talking about whether anyone likes me personally, although I assure you plenty of people do, the point is that people are being discriminated against and mistreated solely because of weight, and that is no more acceptable that someone being mistreated because of their skin color or sex or orientation or car or shoe preference, for cripe’s sake!  The whole not an acceptable example of your species — that’s the DEFINITION of hate, in case you missed it.  

 

It’s sad that anyone would come to someone else’s blog and spew such vitriol.  It’s sadder that they can’t do it intelligently.   I doubt he will ever see this, but I sincerely hope that somewhere along the line he learns about respecting other people, and a little science wouldn’t hurt either.