People have moo’d at me and called me a cow, and that’s annoying, but not as annoying as the number of people, businesses, and industries who call my fat friends I cash cows. That cash may not be coming to us since statistically we get paid less than our thin peers and are less likely to be hired. Ironically that’s part of a mass hysteria and prejudice that is perpetuated by a group of people and industries who make Billions of dollars off our backs. Now, people who I respect believe that the people behind the diet industry and Big Pharma have the best of intentions and truly believe that what they are doing is best for people’s health. I have a hard time believing that. Here are some reasons why:
Despite the fact that the American Diabetes Association tells us that most overweight people will never get diabetes, the concepts of obesity and diabetes have been so conflated that the term “diabesity” has come into vogue. Except it’s not by crazy random happenstance – the term “diabesity” was trademarked by a group called Shape Up America. According to their website, they are supposed to be “high profile national initiative to promote healthy weight and increased physical activity in America”. So why do you think for-profit diet companies like Weight Watchers International, Jenny Craig and Slim*Fast, not to mention pharmaceutical companies including Wyeth Ayerst, Ortho-McNeil, and Novartis, have donated millions of dollars to this initiative? An initiative which, if they thought it would actually work, would put them out of business? Do you think it’s possible that they know that the fat panic created by Shape Up will drive them customers who will have a 95% chance of failing and then becoming their customers again?
Speaking of diet companies, it wasn’t their idea to put disclaimers up every time they say that their product works. Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig and other weight loss companies have been successfully sued for deceptive trade practices by the Federal Trade Commission, and their disingenuous practices have lead the FTC to create regulations specifically for their advertising. So they didn’t change their very profitable behavior of selling a product that they know has limited success, they just disclaimed it.
Weight Watchers in particular has been caught doing some really shady research. Counting people as successes twice when they lost weight, gained it back, then lost it again, making it seem like people who succeed on their first diet to lose the 10 pounds they gained after a break-up prove that people on their 20th diet can lose over 100 pounds, counting people as “successes” for statistical purposes as soon as they lose 5% of their body weight, even if that leaves those people in the same BMI category in which they started (and therefore, based on their own literature, at the same health risks as when they started.)
The Strong4Life campaign put up billboards, bus shelter signs and commercials showing healthy confident fat kids acting like unhealthy unhappy fat kids who don’t have clothes that fit them, with slogans like “Being fat takes the fun out of being a kid”. They claimed that it was necessary to shame, stigmatize and humiliate fat kids in order to make them healthier. The program is the brainchild of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. They are a not-for-profit organization and in addition to taking donations from Waffle House, IHOP, and Dairy Queen while denouncing the food that they serve, they also took over $145,000 in donations from Coca-Cola and Pepsi. I notice that on the Strong4Life campaign’s Quick Start tips page, they caution against drinking juice, but say nothing about soda. Is it because the juice companies could not come up with $145,000? They are also running a weight loss clinic for kids including performing partial stomach amputations for weight loss in children despite the fact that the practice is considered highly questionable.
If these are their best intentions I’d hate to see their worst. Here are some of the many companies, industries, and people that benefit financially from the conflation of weight and health, the stereotype of thinness as beauty that lead to stigma and shame being heaped on fat people in our society, and from making sure that we focus on weight and not health:
- The diet industry – Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, MediFast,Slim*Fast, Jess Weiner etc.
- Pharmaceutical Companies that manufacture weight loss drugs
- The Biggest Loser Franchise (advertising for the show, DVDs, supplements, soundtracks, t-shirts, and more)
- Women’s magazines who depend on a staggering number of weight loss articles to sell issues
- Weight loss surgery centers, weight loss surgeons
- Companies, like Allergan, that sell weight loss surgery implements
- Doctors who specialize in weight loss
- Researchers who specialize in researching weight loss (to the exclusion of other health practices)
- Publishing companies who publish books about weight loss
- Authors of weight loss books
- And more…
One of my favorite things about the Support All Kids billboard campaign is that it gets money flowing in the other direction. It makes me happy to buy books about Health at Every Size and take workshops about Health at Every Size because it sends my money in the other direction. It makes me happy when I or one of my colleagues is paid as a speaker by universities and by those who attend our workshops. I am happy whenever I see that someone has created a product to help people live a HAES life because it allows people to get good information, and send their money in the other direction. I can’t stop everyone from calling me a cow, but by voting with my wallet I can stop being a cash cow for industries that perpetuate hysteria about, and shame and stigmatization of, my friends and me all the while claiming that it’s “for our own good”.
iVillage Update
I did a piece for iVillage about Stacy Irvine, the girl whose collapse from anemia and breathing problems led to the discovery that her diet consisted almost entirely of chicken nuggets. Every article mentioned that she was at a healthy weight, although you would think that the situation would help them see that there is no such thing as a healthy weight. Anyway, you can find the article here, it is unapologetically HAES without the usual “of course, obesity is still bad blah blah blah” paragraph and so publishing it was a kind of a bold move for iVillage – so if you feel like reading and commenting then go for it!
Georgia Billboard Update
Speaking of that Georgia Billboard Campaign, we are only 98 donors away from hitting the 1,000 that we need to unlock our $5,000 More of Me To Love matching grant. At that point we’ll close donations and begin implementation. If you haven’t donated there is still time to stand up for bullied kids and be part of this. If you have donated then consider asking a friend to donate. You can link to https://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/enough-is-enough-the-big-fat-money-bomb/ to give them all the details and the donation links, or send them directly to the solidarity dollar site at http://tinyurl.com/solidaritydollar. It would be awesome to get this done today!
This blog is supported by its readers rather than corporate ads. If you feel that you get value out of the blog, can afford it, and want to support my work and activism, please consider a paid subscription or a one-time contribution. The regular e-mail subscription (available at the top right hand side of this page) is still completely free. Thanks for reading! ~Ragen
Dances With Fat 
Interesting piece. An expose on the diet industry is well overdue. What rich pickings would be found there.
The one on the list I don’t have a problem with is researchers into weight, because when they do serious research, the findings often challenge ‘common sense’.
What surprised me the most is how little is actually known or understood about adipose tissue – one researcher I saw interviewed said she started out being the lone researcher into it, because fat is so stigmatised that scientists themselves have shied away from it.
What she discovered is that fat cells aren’t the inert cells that everybody thought they were and they play a role in hormone regulation, particularly for post-menopausal women. Excising fat or starving fat cells may have unintended and negative health outcomes that aren’t yet understood.
Even if they start out specifically looking for a ‘cure’, these sorts of findings are very valuable and may eventually help to change the paradigm.
Nice speculations here. It’s basically business trying to make money just like everyone else in the disguise of being in the name of health. They know their programs don’t work and that’s the way they want it so they can get their return customers. It’s too bad people buy into the lies. If they were serious enough about health, they would do more research.
As long as men are attracted to thin women, women will always try to be it. So there’s the vanity reason. Then there is also the people that confuse thinness with health, which is also all screwed up because Americans understand so little about healthy eating practices, and you can’t blame them because it’s the way our culture has been shaped.
I think we should forget about weight and focus on how we can eat healthier and live healthier lives, that is for the people that want to. There is much room for improvement there in general. All these people trying to become thin don;t even understand their bodies, what they are agreeing to do with their bodies, and they don’t have any clear ideas about what is and isn’t healthy choices. They are all just trying to chase an ideal that someone else has achieved, without realizing that their ideal may not be possible or good for them. We can all learn to be healthier, but focusing on weight just isn’t the way.
As long as men are attracted to thin women, women will always try to be it.
Doesn’t this assume that: 1) men are not also attracted to fat women, and 2) the women themselves are attracted to men?
I’m torn on that phrase. On the one hand, it makes assumptions and I think that’s what all of us here are constantly trying to avoid and educate people NOT to do. But as a 25 year old straight, fat America woman, I can tell you… it’s pretty darn true. It’s generalizing, but the generalization and assumption are based on some semblence of truth. Perhaps it should read “so long as women like Megan Fox and underwear models are held as the standard of beauty, women will feel the pressure to be thin.”
I can certainly vouch for the fact that there are both men attracted to fat women, men who aren’t too picky about the weight of a woman so long as she will sleep with him (whether or not she is interested in HIM is a whole ‘nother issue), and women – like myself – who have come to realize they have an attraction to heavy men. For all the stereotype of the “fat woman who is so desperate to get laid because no man ever wants anything to do with her” I can assure you, me and my fat female friends have had very little problem ever getting any. Men may not want to ADMIT it sometimes, because openly dating a thin woman is equated with personal success for a man, but societal pressure doesn’t seem to have much to do with personal desire. Don’t confuse marketing with what men really want.
I work with a small herd of dairy cows at my job. I’ve come to admire them so much for their curiosity, friendliness, and general calmness. They also couldn’t care a lick if they are standing or sitting in a big pile of someone else’s poo. I would say that if people moo at you, take it as a compliment. You are curious enough to have researched your health and gotten answers that work for you, you are friendly and calm enough to run a blog and deal with all the haters while being supportive to other people out there, and you couldn’t care a lick if someone spews their own crap at you – you’re unaffected. Cows are great! And so are you. 🙂
I love cows!
Weight Watchers in particular has been caught doing some really shady research.
Ha, ha, what’s the point? No one cares, certainly not the medical establishment who’ve supported the slimming industry for yonks and probably helped save them a coupld of decades ago. Numerous people have been recommended to them by their doctors.
Ditto so called ‘obesity’ science-incidentally, that’s where the real expose should be-which seeks to ballast the feeble weight loss diet results.
I nearly forgot myself and said efficacy,ROTFLOL!
I wish, wish, wish Ben Goldacre – who has a good record of exposing fakey research in his ‘Bad Science’ column in the Guardian – would look into the research around ‘obesity’ and health. (He did a good job of tearing apart ‘Dr’ Gillian McKeith, the infamous ‘You Are What You Eat’ TV food quack.) But unfortunately, the Guardian itself has a readership which is liberal about everything except weight – you only have to look at the comments on the articles the Fatosphere’s own Marianne Kirby wrote for them – and a vested interest in promoting weight loss (they run their own ‘Eat right’ thing for people to sign up for and get a personalized diet). And it’s not really clear where Goldacre himself is coming from on weight and health. So, I’m not holding out any great hopes.
Sort of off-topic, but another thing that bugs me is paying more for a larger size. QVC charges the same price for a size XS as they do for a 3x. But when I tried to buy LL Bean’s perfect soft t-shirt (or whatever the hell it’s called), not only did they not have it in v-neck in plus sizes (only unflattering crew neck in hideous colors) they were charging $4 more for it. To me, that’s another cash cow instance. Sick of it.
Yeah, when I let my mind “go there” I think about how Big Media, Big Pharma, Big Food, Big Diet, and Big Banks are probably owned by some ginormous “holding” companies and that a very few people are making a shit ton of money by trying to make us dumb, sick(er), and more in debt.
Seems relevant:
“It is not the fault of our doctors that the medical service of the community, as at present provided for, is a murderous absurdity. That any sane nation, having observed that you could provide for the supply of bread by giving bakers a pecuniary interest in baking for you, should go on to give a surgeon a pecuniary interest in cutting off your leg, is enough to make one despair of political humanity. But that is precisely what we have done. And the more appalling the mutilation, the more the mutilator is paid. He who corrects the ingrowing toe-nail receives a few shillings: he who cuts your inside out receives hundreds of guineas, except when he does it to a poor person for practice.”
George Bernard Shaw “the Doctor’s Dilemma: Preface on Doctors 1909
I literally just yesterday posted on a private FA FB group about this. I discovered while paying bills that Weight Watchers has been charging my credit card $18 a month. This has been going on since 2010. Now I totally accept that it’s my fault that the money is gone: I never ended the subscription and I didn’t pay close enough attention to my credit card statement (I thought it was another subscription to a gaming website).
What was scary was my reaction when I logged in to the website. I believe firmly in HAES and that dieting is a bad idea for me. But I got triggered in a HUGE way once I logged in. My hands started shaking and I almost cried. I did finally cancel my subscription, but it was so hard to not give in to the urge to try to diet just “one more time.” Weight Watchers is a big deal for me because I once lost 70 pounds on it. Of course, I then put it back on plus another 40. But they don’t want to tell you that….they don’t want to tell you about people like me.
Anyway, another timely post and you’re absolutely right. I’m sick and tired of being somebody’s cash cow.
I’ve done weight watchers twice. I lost 30 lbs the first time and when the weight came back, it came back with 20 friendly extra pounds. I did it a second time and lost the 20 lbs and then it came back with 20 more friendly extra lbs. I really hate weight watchers and wish I’d never put myself through that.
Is anyone else having problems donating on the GoFundMe website? I know I’m entering in my info correctly, I know I’ve got the money, it’s just saying “unable to process.”
I don’t think the vast majority of people in the weight loss industry (damn, I nearly typed “injury”) are lying to themselves. I think the only conscious frauds are some of the people on the fringes who invent a new weight loss method out of nothing because there’s money to be made.
People in the weight loss industry are just like the rest of us. They’ve been hearing for their whole lives that the only way to be healthy is to be thin, that fat is a moral issue, and that obesity is an emergency. Of course, examining those ideas is less likely if you’re making money from them, but it’s not quite the same thing as conscious lying.
One thing which I believe stabilizes fatphobia is not wanting to believe that one’s society is maintaining a vicious hallucination. I know I had some resistance to fat acceptance on those grounds, and then I remembered I went to Hebrew school for ten years, and I could make that not a waste of time[1] by remembering that anti-Semitism went on for centuries, was based on a vicious hallucination, and seemed normal to the people who held it.
People generally don’t make a habit of checking all their premises to see whether what they’re thinking makes sense. Ragen, you might not have noticed that fatphobia is a serious problem, except that you had a lot of evidence pushing you in that direction.
[1] The songs were good, but mostly, it was pretty drab.
I absolutely love you for posts like these, they go right to the heart of why there is so much fat hatred. It is perpetuated in the media and advertising, in many different institutions because there is BIG money to be had in convincing the world there is an ugly health epidemic and then offering the solution. The media and advertisers say, you’re fat, you’re undesirable, you’re unhealthy and WE’VE got the cure all…cash cows indeed!
Anyhoo thank you for another eye opening post! I suggest your blog as often as I can bc it is always on point, informative and easy to understand.
The trouble is, the ideals of the industry wriggle their insidious way inside the heads of people who don’t give it a penny of their money. These are the the people who believe that diets, DVDs, pills etc. are ‘quick fixes’ for people who don’t have the willpower to ‘just eat less and move more’.
They may not ‘believe’ in the weight loss industry, but they’re part of it nevertheless. One, by the time they (or the people they’re giving advice to) have cycled their way to 10, 20 or 100lb heavier than when they started, guess who’s going to be there to offer them a solution. Which will just be exactly the same weight cycling in a shiny, expensive new package. The fact that the ELMM message is propagated by ‘official’ medical sources – many of whom are in cahoots with purveyors of (to cite the example of one UK ‘anti-obesity’ quango) diet shakes, lap-bands and ‘may cause leakage’ pills – speaks volumes; why would any organization partner a company that makes products which, according to their philosophy, shouldn’t be necessary?
Two, just by perpetuating the idea that fat is bad and weight loss is absolutely necessary, the ELMM people help create the environment in which the weight-loss industry flourishes. You might say that while they’re not themselves cash cows, they’re unpaid advertisers for the dairy company. That’s why getting at the root of the idea – is weight loss really necessary? is fat unhealthy? – is so essential.
Make that 78! I’m sorry it wasn’t more, I’m spread a little thin right now.
Hey I’m setting up a link from from my website to danceswithfat tonight.
I am also sorry that didn’t happen sooner, like I said I’m spread a little thin right now. Stay strong I love you all. MUA MUA MUA hugs and kisses all around.