I don’t pay much attention to the news, mostly because I find it sensationalistic and misleading and depressing. In order to avoid complete oblivion to the world around me, I have two news feeds on my iGoogle page – CNN and the BBC. I find I generally prefer the BBC, mainly for its lack of bullshit and its balanced coverage of events worldwide, not just the US. Today I made the mistake of clicking on a linked headline called “The Moments That Make us Fat”, which took me to this story.
Warning: If you are going to click on that link, make sure you are well stocked on Sanity Watchers points. If you are going to read the comments, make sure you are also well stocked on rum and fat hate bingo cards. Better yet, don’t read the comments. You’ve been warned.
If we were to play a fat sterotype drinking game, everyone involved would be passed out before we even got past the picture that accompanies the article. (FTR, I refuse to refer to this as a news story, because it ain’t.) Hey, it’s a fat guy! And he’s watching TV! (drink) He’s got an unreasonably huge bowl of some snack food! (drink) He’s all slovenly! (drink) He’s in a recliner with a remote control! (drink) He’s all alone in a sad little bare apartment! (drink)
Ok, maybe not everyone would be in the floor at this point, but I would be. I’m a lightweight, pun intended.
If you can get past the picture to the text, you will soon discover that Elizabeth Cohen, Senior medical correspondent for CNN, has apparently been using exclusively ladymags from the past 50 years as source material, because she proceeds to trot out every dated diet “tip” that every person who has ever dieted, or been criticized for her weight, or has been, y’know, awake for the past 20 years has heard approximately 5.37 x 1058 times. She suggests eating a snack before you go to a party, or using a small bowl if you are going to eat a snack in front of the TV, or getting a to-go box in a restaurant and dividing your entrée before you start eating. There’s a lot of babble about “willpower” and being “good”. She advises sitting with your back to the buffet, or better yet, not going to buffets at all, since we all know that us fatties can’t resist unlimited overcooked cheap meat and greasy green beans and iceberg lettuce. Pretty much the only folk advice for fatties she doesn’t mention is the bit about the best exercise being pushing yourself away from the table.
Seriously , did anyone read this article and think “Eureka! My problems are solved! I shall be fat no mooooooore!” ? I doubt it, given that there is nothing in this article that hasn’t been said a thousand times before, and these little jems of wisdom do not become less asinine upon retelling.
The theme of the piece, of course, is that fat people are fat because we have all somehow misunderstood the dubious truism that overeating (being “bad”), and only that is what makes you fat, an assumption that excludes individual biochemistry, genetics, and a thousand other factors that contribute to body composition. I am not sure if TBTB at CNN think this reductionism is necessary because they assume that their readership is profoundly stupid (another unfortunate fat people sterotype), or if it was just a slow news day and they asked Ms. Cohen, who I assume must have some level of journalistic skill to be employed by CNN, to throw something together and the product was this tripe. Either way, it’s a sad day for American journalism when this passes as news.
I haven’t deleted your feed yet, CNN, because you still annoy me less than every other news organization besides the BBC. But keep this up, and I might just have to find a new widget. On a side note, thanks to this post I learned how to code superscript in html, so go me!
My Improvisational Life 