Today my friend Amy and I drove from Austin to Dallas for an America the Beautiful 2 – The Thin Commandments Premiere. Along the way Amy took her eyes off the road to look at something and we started to drift right. When I teased her about it she said “I’m a very successful driver based on the fact that I’m still on the road. I’ve been in a ditch, but I’m not there now.” (Amy is both feisty and clever, and so this phrase was uttered with a feisty cleverness that made it hilarious.)
It also clarified for me everything that is pissing me off about this completely inappropriate partnership between NEDA and the STOP Obesity Alliance. The idea that someone would call me diseased or claim that I have an eating disorder just based on the size of my body, my amazing body that does amazing things, is ridiculous and offensive beyond all human reason, not to mention completely unethical. (No matter how much more money it makes them because of forced insurance reimbursements and a huge new target demographic for their products.)
Tonight during the film Q&A a woman felt the need to continuously assert that obese people as a group don’t exercise and are unhealthy. Conveniently, the two examples right in front of her were “exceptions to the rule”. At one point she said “You are the exceptions, most of the rest of them don’t exercise!” (Information that she seems to have acquired via rectal pull. We already know the two things that you can tell by looking at a fat person.) I think that history has shown us that anytime you characterize an entire population as “them”, and proceed to make broad sweeping generalizations about them, you are headed down a bad road.
And what makes it even more frustrating for me personally is that when I had the body that everyone seems to think would prove that I’m disease free and have a healthy relationship with food, I was suffering from an eating disorder and sicker than I’ve ever been in my life. Which is why I’m a more competent witness to my experience than someone with a scale, a yardstick, and a BMI app on their iPhone, or someone with the ability to state the same prejudice loudly and often during a Q&A session. I’ve been in a ditch, I know what it looks like, and I’m not there now.
Hey, do you suppose that’s why diagnostic tools exist? You know, so that Medical and Mental Health professionals don’t make up stuff based on their preconceived notions and prejudices or what will bring them the biggest profit potential? Hmmm…
My ditch was all about dieting and trying to lose weight because I thought that was the path to health. When it didn’t work I just tried more and harder. Eventually it occurred to me that my strategy basically amounted to trying to get out of the ditch by digging out the bottom – which of course just leaves you in a deeper hole. When I put down the shovel and started using my brain things came together for me and I found a path to health that I love and that works great for me. It’s not that I’ve never been in a ditch (I certainly have), or that I’ll never be in a ditch again (it could happen), it’s that I’m not there now. And jumping up and down and claiming that I am – because it means that you can sell me your stuff and force my insurance company to pay for it, or because it makes you feel superior- does not make it so. Please sell Concern Trolling for Fun and Profit somewhere else, we’re all stocked up here.
Dances With Fat 
I’ve heard “Well, that’s the exception!” all of the time when it comes to obesity. Fat people who exercise are the exception. Fat people who are healthy are the exception. Fat people who have medical conditions (or necessary medications) contributing to weight gain and body size are the exception. Fat people who eat lots of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains are the exception. Fat people who are genetically fat are the exception. Fat people who eat a small amount of calories are the exception. Fat people who have health or food security issues that mean it’s genuinely a good idea for them to prioritize getting enough food regularly over getting the “right” foods are the exception.
Basically, every fat person who isn’t constantly sedentary and literally eating themselves sick on large quantities of fatty and sugary food for no other reason than personal decadence is the exception. (Except for people with binge eating disorder, which it has lately become fashionable to apply as a mass diagnosis to every fat person.) And a lot of people are convinced of this on literally no evidence, because their “Everyone knows fat people are just bad” sense is that strong.
I’m curious what the reaction was to her comments. I haven’t seen the movie yet (and am bummed I missed the LA premiere!), but I’d imagine it’d be a more positive atmosphere.
Also- I completely relate to the ditch analogy and trying to get out by digging down. That’s such great and fitting imagery!
Hi Jen,
There wasn’t a strong reaction from the crowd, but most people who were there seemed to get it.
~Ragen
And everyone just knows that if you open your closet at night, there will be a huge, man-eating monster in there. One makes about as much sense as the other. All my life I have been ‘the exception’, the ‘I don’t mean you, I mean all those ‘other fat people’, the ‘big you’re not even that big’, the ‘well, you exercise so much, your size MUST be genetic, but most people eat themselves fat.’ No, people don’t ‘eat themselves fat’ any more than they eat themselves diabetic, or eat themselves into having cancer, or eat themselves into having a wart on their nose, or whatever else anyone can come up with. Whoever you are, about 80% of your size & shape is determined by your genetics; whoever you are, you are likely to have at least a slight weight gain & change in your body shape & composition with aging. Whoever you are, if you can divorce yourself from the culture around you, there is a strong chance that you eat very normal amounts. If you happen to be fat, there is a damn good chance that you may be exercising regularly, or at least as the majority of the thin people around you, may even be an athlete, & that you do not necessarily live any differently than the average thin person. However, if you are fat, you can be diagnosed as sick, told you must be a glutton, & that you need to ‘do something about yourself’ by anyone & everyone, probably including your plumber. I imagine that most alcoholics (I am from an abusive alcoholic family) get less unsolicited ‘help’ & advice than most fat people.
The media, the diet industry, & that medical profession mentioned above, many of whose members do indeed diagnose illness by body size, spend billions of dollars selling us all lies about fat/health/food & all related subjects. I watch little tv & every day I find reasons to be grateful that is so. I have a mother-in-law who is nearly 90 & who has been very short, pear-shaped & quite plump all her life, has gone back to being plump after several stints on Weight Watchers, who the other day bemoaned the fact that she is not wealthy enough to be able to afford Nutrisystem. She is indeed a very ignorant, uneducated woman who is too gullible about what she sees on tv, but it is scary as hell that this pernicious disease of body hatred has so totally taken over our culture that it even reaches people who, of all us, should be able to relax & just LIVE, eat whatever they like, & enjoy life. She thinks she ‘needs’ to lose 40-50 pounds; what she doesn’t realize is that those 40-50 pounds are likely the biggest reason she is still alive. She wouldn’t accept or believe it if I told her, because I am fat, obviously do not know what I am talking about, & am just making excuses to eat like a pig & stay fat.
Yes, indeed, we (millions of us) are exceptions.
I once said that a thin person could mainline pure lard into one arm while shooting heroin in the other and the only thing that someone MIGHT say to them is that heroin is unhealthy. All a fat person has to do on the other hand is reach for any kind of food, even carrots, and they will be asked “do you really need to eat that?”
Carrots, bananas, apples, pretty much any kind of food you can name, I’ve heard of fat people getting the “Do you really want to be eating that? Don’t you know it contains carbs/sugar/fat/calories?” (Yes, I know that. I also know that humans need calories, including fat and carbs, to live.)
As someone who has read of number of weight loss blogs, I would say that the majority of these bloggers DO see themselves as lazy, mentally unstable bingers who are totally responsible for their own sorry state.
I have to keep reminding myself that neither I nor any of the people I know (with the exception of one exceptionally thin woman who is rumoured to be bulimic and clearly suffers from exercise bulimia)–no matter what size they are–look anything like the stereotype of the TV watching, bonbon and Big Mac gulping, 10,000 calorie a day people who make up the majority of the weight loss blogosphere. It’s really sad how much most weight loss bloggers hate themselves.
“As someone who has read of number of weight loss blogs, I would say that the majority of these bloggers DO see themselves as lazy, mentally unstable bingers who are totally responsible for their own sorry state.”
I spent at least 30 years of my life viewing myself that way. We’re brainwashed into it and it wrecks our self-esteem to the extent that breaking out of the vicious circle can be near impossible!
I really wish I’d known then what I know now!
I spent every day of my life from about age eleven when I discovered that I could no longer wear size 9 boys’ jeans and had to start wearing a gargantuan size 1 women’s trousers hating my body. Prior to that I had only hated my awful buck-toothed face. I became bulimic at age 13. It has only been in the past year (I’m now pushing 50) that I have decided to say NO MORE. The self hate tapes are still there, and some days they win. But I’m no longer going to let them win without a fight.
“We’re brainwashed into it and it wrecks our self-esteem”
I completely agree with this. I grew up with this mindset, and it is hard as hell to get out of it.
And faycinacroud, I salute you. You keep fighting, because you deserve to win!
— Buffy
Let it be known, at NO time did we end up in a ditch with ME driving. However, let’s just say based on on trip back to Austin, Ms. Ragen is ready for NASCAR.
But let it be known that you are home safe and sound and well rested enough to be getting digs in on the blog 🙂
~Ragen
I love the analogy of digging your way out the ditch through the bottom. I must remember to use that one.