I think that the War on Obesity should come with a side effect warning. Something like:
Caution: The war on obesity is highly toxic. Discontinue the war and call your local Health at Every Size Practitioner if you start to think that dieting’s 5% success rate seems like good odds.
The war on obesity may cause issues with your judgment. Until you know how the war on obesity affects you, you should avoid stating your stereotypes about fat people as if they are facts, or as if anybody should care what you think of fat people.
In extreme cases the war on obesity can lead to a complete loss of your ability to treat people appropriately or make good choices. Discontinue the war on obesity immediately if you find yourself spending time stalking and harassing fat bloggers, joining groups devoted to the bullying of fat people, or claiming that the research doesn’t matter because Dr. Oz is just so inspiring.
On second thought, the war on obesity is simply too toxic and it is our recommendation that it be permanently removed from the shelf.
The Fat Activism Conference is this weekend!
This is a virtual conference so you can listen to the talks by phone and/or computer wherever you are. Whether you are looking for support in your personal life with family, friends, healthcare providers etc. or you’re interested in being more public with your activism with blogging, petitions, protest, projects, online activism, or something else, this conference will give you tools and perspectives to support you and your work, and to help you make that work intentionally intersectional and inclusive, so that nobody gets left behind. Click here to get all the info and register!
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If you are uncomfortable with my offering things for sale on this site, you are invited to check out this post.
Dances With Fat 
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Oh, yes.
TRIGGER WARNING: Discussion of WLS.
Sitting at a coffee shop, and at the next table over is a rather loud man (loudness is okay with me, it has to be, I indulge in it not infrequently) who had undergone WLS. He was still in love with it. Marveling at all the weight he had lost, he confirmed, interestingly enough, that all the weight loss had not corrected his cholesterol levels at all & still needed to take statins (which I am fervently against, but, hey, his business!). More worrisome to me: he was still marveling at how he never wanted to eat anything. Doesn’t that concern anyone? How is this man going to get his nutrition?! Regardless of the short-term gains he feels he has made, I suspect that he is yet another “casualty” of the war on obesity. Sorrowful!
Terrible. And yes, cholesterol is independent of any activity or food you eat. I too am against statins, they’ve made my dad diabetic, and sent him to the hospital recently with kidney failure, but the doc still won’t take him off of them.
Yup. My family on the maternal side tends to have naturally vey high HDL levels. . Like 100-120! Which also tends to make the total cholesterol borderline high, in the 220-240 range. If our HDL happens to be “lower” as in 60-80, at a given blood test. then our total cholesterol is “normal” and 160-180 as well. Been this way at least 3 generations that we know of. Mine/my brother’s, our Mom’s, and our Grandma, Mom’s Mom. I currently weigh 107-108. Have pretty much the same cholesterol readings as I did at 181-182. Had them at weights between too. Both sides of my family are also long lived. My grandma died a few months short of her 99th birthday. My mom is 86, looks and acts about 70.
My mom’s HDL has always been high, around the 240 range, but her LDL is around 50. According to Dr. Malcolm Kendrick’s blog (who is one of the world’s most vociferous against statins), he’s never seen anyone alive with an LDL that low. Yet she was prescribed statins to lower the HDL (which doesn’t happen). But apparently it’s been that way, with the low LDL and high HDL. The doc has put her on statins twice, and both times the liver has failed!
If your dad refuses to take them there’s nothing the doctor can do except advise against it. My doc brings them up once in a while because the &$#% insurance industry has their protocols but I always tell him there’s no way I’m taking them. And my lipids are either normal or just above. I told him I’m not interested in ruining my liver and suffering lifelong muscle pain but thanks just the same.
That’s good that you can stand up to your doctor. Now I just tell them that I’m allergic (I think my dad is too). The situation with my dad though, is that he thinks his doc is God, and oh-so-smart, ergo, you can’t go against him since he has your best interest at heart. I doubt it since he has a whole room at his practice that is jam packed with samples, and when my mom went to see him last time, I had just been to the dentist in the same building, so I sat in the waiting room. I saw the pharm rep come in with a suitcase of “goodies”, and she was given free reign to fill up the room. Most of my parents’ prescrips start as samples.
As an Avon lady, I have samples, but the purpose of samples is to generate sales based on what you know your customer needs. In medicine it is to foist junk meds on your patients.
Depending on the surgery, malnutrition is a very common and deadly side effect. The worst part is that the people suffering from it often don’t recognize it – they’re just happy to be thinner.
I want this on a sticker, with a skull and crossbones icon, and just plaster it EVERYWHERE.