Time Magazine has a cover with a profile picture of governor Chris Christie under the headline “The Elephant in the Room.”

Time called it a “figure of speech” and did not apologize.

Jon Stewart created a cover for “The Daily Show Magazine” with the headline “Time Magazine is a pile of sh*t.”  Stewart explained that it was a figure of speech.

Commenters all over the internet are wringing their hands and wailing “won’t somebody think about his health,”  defending the idea that cheap shots based on the appearance of candidates are ok if we can successfully stereotype that appearance as indicating health.  The truth, of course, is that there are healthy and unhealthy people of every shape and size and people should probably think long and hard about whether or not “health issues” are valid reasons to vote for someone, or if they are just being healthist.  No matter what someone believes about this, I don’t think it justifies National magazines making tacky appearance-based jokes.

Chris Christie has said that he doesn’t care “Whatever they put on the cover of TIME Magazine, as long as my name’s with it, I could care less” and “if I’m bothered by jokes about my weight, it’s time for me to curl up into the fetal position and go home, OK? I — and the fact is that, you know, if they think that’s clever, great for them.”

Governor Christie gets to handle this any way he wants, and I have absolutely no issues with his reaction.  I think that every fat person gets to decide how we deal with the bullying, stigmatizing, stereotyping and oppression that comes at us.  I think that the problem lies with the people doing the bullying, stigmatizing, stereotyping and oppression.

I will say that I believe it’s a sad commentary on our culture if we truly believe that anyone who wants to participate in public service (or make a living singing, dancing, acting etc.) should just expect that along with that comes a heaping helping of body shaming, stigmatizing, and bullying.  I would like to live in a society where people think that’s not ok, not one where they use the prevalence of bad behavior as an excuse to perpetuate and participate in it.

Governor Christie and I disagree on a great many things – like the idea that same gender couples should have to get the approval of the majority of voters to enjoy the same civil rights that opposite gender couples consider their birthright.  But I’m happy to let my argument stand on its merits.  Unfortunately I see many people who aren’t willing to do that attack the Governor utilizing a common way to institutionalize oppression – by tying  it to things like health, ability, fault, choice etc.  Fat people are definitely not the first group to have to deal with this, sadly we likely won’t be the last.  My question to those who are justifying their size bigotry against Chris Christie (or anyone else) under the guise of “health” is that if, looking back in history, they are proud of the company they are keeping?

The real elephant in the room isn’t a fat governor, it’s fat bigotry.

Update:  There is a complete list of all of the bloggers who participated in the Blog Carnival for the 30th Anniversary of Shadow on a Tightrope.  Check it out!

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If my selling things on the blog makes you uncomfortable, you might want to check out this post.  Thanks for reading! ~Ragen

When I was a seven year old girl and just learning to hate my body, a group of women were choosing to stop hating theirs.  Today is the 30th anniversary of the book Shadow on a Tightrope:  Writings by Women on Fat Oppression and some bloggers on the Fatosphere are celebrating with a blog carnival.  More than ten years later when I had the idea that I could maybe learn to actually like my body, I found amazing support in the fatosphere and books like Fat?So! by Marilyn Wann and Health at Every Size by Linda Bacon, and finding and reading Shadow gave me a connection to the history of the movement that continues to be really important to me (it was a big part of the impetus for the Fat Activist History Project). My copy remains a prized possession.

I was and am so moved at how these women came together – without the internet, the fatosphere, facebook, or smartphones –  how they rose up from a society that was fully entrenched in fat phobia, and helped to start a movement from scratch.   This book and the amazing women who wrote it inform my activism everyday.  I want to live up to the example they set, I want to honor their work and sacrifice. So today’s blog is a thank you to the women who rose up from societal shame and stigma, called it what it was and is (oppression,) and put another option on paper that I was lucky enough to find.  From the bottom of my big fat heart, thank you:

Lisa Schoenfielder

Barb Wieser

Vivian Mayer

Sharon Bas Hannah

Kelly

Marianne Ware

Joan Dickenson

Kate Allen

Lynn Mabel-Lois

Terre Poppe

Leah Pesa Kushner

Lynn Levy

Susan Norman

Veronica Hubbard

Judith Stein

Doris K.

Judy Freespirit

Sue McCabe

Cynthia Riggs

Elana Dykewomon

Betty Shermer

Kathleen Hagen

Robin Goldner

Mona Hudson

Martha Courtot

Laurie Ann Lepoff

Karen Scott-Jones

Nedhera Landers

Judith Masur

Marjory Nelson

Sandra Tyler

Kate Allen

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If my selling things on the blog makes you uncomfortable, you might want to check out this post.  Thanks for reading! ~Ragen

I talk a lot on this blog about ways that fat people can advocate for themselves, and that thin fat activists can help advocate for us.  Whether it’s dealing with the bigotry of random strangers or workplace wellness programs, or the government’s ill-conceived war on fat people, or trying to actually get competent evidence-based medical care (and not being a non-consenting participant in experimental medicine), or keeping kids from being non-consenting participants in experimental medicine, I talk a lot about the options that we have to fight this bullshit.  There is something that I want to be absolutely clear about:

This is not fair. We should not have to do any of this.  Fat activism should not be necessary.  The rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness should NOT be size dependent.  Fat rights activism isn’t about asking people to give our rights to us, it’s about asking people to stop keep our rights from us through an inappropriate use of power and privilege, which they never should have done in the first place.

Stereotyping, bigotry, oppression and bullying are things that should absolutely not happen. Sometimes people can get confused and think that because these things become our problem they must be our fault.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Fat people have the right to exist – no matter why we are fat, if we could be not fat, or what being fat means.  There are no other valid opinions on the matter.  Unfortunately, again through an inappropriate use of power and privilege, invalid opinions based on bigotry and oppression have managed to find their way into the culture masquerading as truth.  It’s not the first time this has happened and, sadly, it’s likely not the last.  We are not the only group this is happening to, but it is happening to us and  it sucks.  It seriously sucks. It fucking sucks.  It’s not fair, and it’s not our fault. And did I mention that it sucks?

Nobody is obligated to activism of any kind.  While I choose to be an activist – to fight the stigma, bullying, and oppression that shouldn’t exist –  I also think it’s important to remind myself frequently that it shouldn’t be necessary. It’s also completely reasonable to get really angry and really frustrated by the crap that we have to go through – whether it’s dealing with a doctor who thinks that they are a psychic who can tell everything about you from your size, or dealing with some jerk who spends their time hating people for their body size, I completely support you if you feel like taking a tennis racket and hitting a pillow a few hundred times – I may grab a racket and pillow of my own.  So no matter how you choose to deal with the BS that comes at you, remember that it’s not fair and, even if it becomes your problem, it’s not your fault.

Like my blog?  Here’s more of my stuff!

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If my selling things on the blog makes you uncomfortable, you might want to check out this post.  Thanks for reading! ~Ragen

 

 

I was thinking today about how often we are told that, as fat people, everyone who is not fat is a better witness to our experience than we are.  How often someone is considered an expert in weight loss, or becoming thin, simply because they happen to be thin.

We are told that we’re not competent witnesses to what and how much we do or should eat, or how much we do or should move.  Our bodies are held up as proof that we must be lying or deluded and that we can’t possibly know, or be doing, what’s best for us. We are told that, because of how we look, we should be subject to more scrutiny than those who don’t look like us, we should lose our right to speak for ourselves, we should be stereotyped and stigmatized and bullied and war should be waged against us  – that the way we look means that we shouldn’t get to choose how highly we prioritize our health or the path we choose to get there like everyone else does.

We are forced to listen to people like Jillian and Bob on The Biggest Loser prattle on insufferably about how fat people think and what fat people do and what it’s like to be a fat person as if we are all walking around under the guide of the same brain just because we share a single physical characteristic. We, and the rest of society, are told that everyone from Dr. Phil to Dr. Oz to random people on the internet know more about how and why we think and act, and what it’s like to be us, than we do.

When we tell people that constant social stigma is damaging to our health, we are told that it’s for our own good and we should be grateful to hear that our bodies are socially unacceptable more often and more aggressively than we already are. When we tell people that we are not suffering from obesity, but are suffering from stigma and oppression, we are told that we are responsible for solving bullying and social stigma by changing ourselves.

We are told that if we don’t accept someone else’s account of how we think, eat, and exercise, then we’re “in denial”.  It’s a system designed to make us powerless.  Our oppressors (well-meaning or otherwise) get to tell the world who we are and what we do and how we think and what it’s like to be us, and if we disagree they call us liars, and claim that we are not capable of speaking for ourselves. Not only are we denied a place in discussions about us, we are actively silenced and shouted down when we attempt to speak up.  People have managed to successfully stigmatize and stereotype our bodies, and then argue that those stereotypes make us unqualified to advocate for ourselves.  Successful stigmatization and oppression should not become self-perpetuating by virtue of self-justification.  In other words, this is seriously fucked up.

So if you start to question yourself, to wonder if Dr. Oz really is a better witness to your experience than you are, then I implore you to stop and consider this possibility:  You are not wrong, it is not you. It’s a system set up to make us feel that we are not the most credible witnesses to our own experiences.  It’s wrong, it’s oppressive, and it shouldn’t happen.  The next time somebody feels the need to tell you “something you don’t know” about being you – your body, lifestyle, behaviors, thoughts or health – feel free to tell them (out loud or in your mind) that it’s not you, it’s them; that you know everything you need to know about being you, and when you want their opinion they will be among the very first to know.

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If my selling things on the blog makes you uncomfortable, you might want to check out this post.  Thanks for reading! ~Ragen

I spent the last three days keynoting at the absolutely fabulous Abundia retreat.  Being in the presence of those amazing women (hi y’all!) more than made up for not having internet access, and I’m glad to be back to the blog today.

One of the things that I talked about at Abundia was my journey to giving my body what I believe it deserves.  For a long time the idea of “deserving” for me was all wrapped up in the idea of being thin.  I was pretty sure that a fat body didn’t really deserve much – I believed that my body would deserve to be comfortable, deserve good healthcare, deserve my love, appreciation and support just as soon as it became thin.  Over time I’ve decided that I’m the only person who decides what my body “deserves” and why, and that I believe my body deserves to be loved, appreciated, and supported by me just because it exists and regardless of the things that it can or can’t do, how it looks, or how all of that might change over time.

That journey started for me when I realized that I had spent so much time hating my body for how it looked that I hadn’t had even a moment of gratitude for everything that my body did for me.  Even though, at that time, I wasn’t ready or able to see my body as beautiful (and wasn’t sure that I ever would), I was able to start appreciating everything that it did for me – and I did that using a pretty simple (though not alwyas easy) three step process.

The next step in giving my body what it deserved was how I viewed it.  It started when I realized that I could see the beauty in other women my size but not in me.  I decided that my body deserved for me to get over my conditioning to be able to see it’s beauty.  I realized that the ability to perceive beauty is a skill – and that I hadn’t developed that skill well enough to see past the (very profitable) BS that society has been pushing on me, and I that my body deserved better than that, so I decided to work on my skill of perceiving beauty.  I started with other people (since that was easier for me) and I challenged myself to find the beauty in every single person I saw, and to remember that if I wasn’t able to find beauty in someone – that was my failing and not there’s.  I found that the more I could see beauty in others the more I gave myself permission to feel beautiful myself, and the less I cared what others thought about that.

My body and I now have a great relationship (though, as with every relationship we have our off moments), but I haven’t stopped working to give it what it deserves.  I try to treat it really well, I work hard to listen to my body and give it what it’s asking for, and to get good care for my body from people who also appreciate it.  My activism is a major part of that.  My body is amazing, it does so many things for me and I believe that my body deserves nothing less than my full-throated support – whether it’s asking for an armless chair so that my butt can be comfortable, demanding good evidence-based healthcare, or standing up to societal stigma and bullying.  To me a big part of loving my body is making sure that I give it what I am now certain it deserves.

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If my selling things on the blog makes you uncomfortable, you might want to check out this post.  Thanks for reading! ~Ragen

I woke up to over 500 readers who let me know about a woman in North Dakota who has taken it upon herself to visually identify children as “moderately obese” and, instead of the candy she is giving to other children, giving them letters to their parents stating, in part,

Your child is, in my opinion, moderately obese and should not be consuming sugar and treats to the extent of some children this Halloween season.

My hope is that you will step up as a parent and ration candy this Halloween and not allow your child to continue these unhealthy eating habits.

So first it can’t be said early or often enough that tactics like this don’t make kids thinner or healthier (two separate things).  Let’s remember that we don’t know how to make fat kids thin, and the untested “interventions” that have been launched  actually are now being shown to lead to eating disorders but not to thinner, or healthier, kids. 

One wonders how she can determine body weight with all that costume attached (and, it’s freaking cold in North Dakota so many of the children will wear costumes over many layers of clothing, including (at least when I was a kid living in Montana) snow pants and parkas.

My heart is ripping open and crying for the kids who will have their Halloween ruined by this – especially since I’m concerned that other adult bullies will choose to follow in her footsteps.

One wonders why she used the term “moderately obese” and what that means to her.  Do kids who are, in her completely unqualified opinion, severely obese get candy?  Or does she just shoot them to put them out of her misery?

If she wants to talk to parents, why doesn’t she actually do that?  Follow the fat ones home to give the letter to their parents, chase after the school bus and at least try to be a respectable busybody, judgmental, bully.

Since she – as an amateur doctor, nutritionist, child psychologist, parenting expert and psychic with the ability to diagnose health issues, and know kids eating behaviors by looking at them in a costume for 10 seconds at her doorstep – is such an expert on health, why not dole out snacks that she thinks are healthy for all kids? Isn’t she afraid that the candy that she hands out to kids who she does not deem “moderately obese” might *gasp* make them fat and thus deserving of her fat bullying letter next year.

For those (like one cardiologist interviewed about this  [trigger warning for unsubstantiated obesity panic, and incompetent doctor being quoted]) who say that giving a fat kid candy is like giving heroin to a heroin addict – what the hell is wrong with you?  A fat body size does not constitute an addiction at all, nor a specific candy addiction, and If you think that candy and heroin are comparable then you probably shouldn’t be allowed to be a doctor anymore.  This line of argument is completely ridiculous.

Also, why be anonymous?  If you are proud of your actions, then stand behind them with your name.  She’ll know that I stand behind what I’ve said here because I put my name on it, despite hate mail and death threats.  She’s so interested in children experiencing what she believes are the consequences of their actions, she should experience the consequences of hers.

Fat kids aren’t in need of  “tough love” and even if they were, this isn’t it.  When we make assumptions about people because of the way that they look, that’s not “love” it’s bigotry.  When we treat one group worse than another because of the way that they look, that’s not “love” (tough or otherwise), it’s bullying.  Fat kids don’t need bigotry and bullying from strangers making guesses about their health and eating habits on any day, let alone a holiday they’ve probably been excited about for months.

If you are a fat kid reading this, I’m truly sorry that there bullying jerks in the world.  I wrote you a letter here if you are interested.

EDIT:  There are several people saying that this is a hoax.  If so, it’s a good hoax that’s been reported in most major media outlets.  That said, if it is a hoax I’m happy, but still concerned that others will read about it and think that it’s a good idea  – so even if it’s a hoax, I’ll let this post stand as a message to any of those folks.

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If my selling things on the blog makes you uncomfortable, you might want to check out this post.  Thanks for reading! ~Ragen

One of the many issues with the idea of the “War on Obesity” or “Preventing Obesity” or talking about “the Obese” is that it defines people entirely by their body size.  The government is waging war against a body size.  Society talks about people with the same body size as if they can be defined and understood completely by the mathematical equation that defines us as “obese” – a definition that has been changed by the very people who profit from it.

Billions of dollars are being spent fighting a war against bodies whose weight in pounds times 703 divided by their height in inches squared is greater than 30, based on the incredibly shoddy research that suggests that the things would be cheaper if there are no more bodies that meet that height/weight ratio.

This idea of “The Obese”  ignores the fact that the only thing obese people have in common is our height and weight ratio. Fat people are as varied in behavior as any group of people who share only a single physical characteristic (and the shame and stigma that currently comes along with it.)  Not to mention that this group includes people who are very muscular, as well as skewing with height.  Kate Harding’s BMI Project gives us a visual representation of how arbitrary these categories are.  The arbitrary categories of “overweight” and “obese” are separated by a few pounds, but we are supposed to believe that those four pounds create a major different in disease outcome and life expectancy regardless of behaviors, genetics, or body composition?

The CDC table says that in adults a BMI of “30 and over” is considered obese.  So, based on health risks that are attributed to “the obese” at my height I would be at the same risk if I weighed 174 pounds, or if I weighed 1,074 pounds.  Even the charts that include “classes” of obesity have a category of “x weight and up” (which is my current category – “Class 3 – Super Obese” which, it turns out, does not come with a cape and a secret identity as it sounds like it should,)  which means that if I believe this whole BMI/body size = health thing, I have same risk at my current weight of around 300 pounds, or if I doubled or even tripled my weight.

When the US Surgeon General announced that “Obesity is the terror within. It is eroding our society. It will bring a disease burden we can’t afford,”  he starting a campaign encouraging people (friends, family, bosses, doctors, and employers of fat people) to fear, blame, and stigmatize a group of citizens based on nothing more than how we look. To reduce fat people to our bodies, suggest that those bodies are failings (though I vehemently disagree with this), and that being fat is such a massive failing that it should overshadow anything else that we do or are – it doesn’t matter what we accomplish or who we are, you can tell by looking at us that we are domestic terrorists eroding society.

Bullshit.

When medicine substitutes body size for health, they are being lazy and cheap – trying to use an easy and inexpensive method to determine health instead of  the complicated work of treating the actual patient in front of them.  We can treat each individual as such, use basic testing to get information, listen to them when they talk about their bodies and what they are experiencing, and only discuss weight when it becomes medically necessary (for example, large unexplained weight fluctuations.)

Rather than assuming that fat people’s health issues are all caused by their fatness but the exact same health issues in thin people are caused by something else, rather than studying body size and making guesses about what would happen if we could eliminate certain body sizes (which we have no idea how to do),  we could study health issues, and interventions that can help people of all sizes.

Rather than pouring money into a War against the result of a mathematical calculation, rather than wasting billions of dollars in anti body size campaigns that have absolutely no evidence to suggest that they will succeed at changing body size or health long term, research and medical science could stop being so ridiculously lazy and start actually looking at health.

This society tells people that, if someone is fat, our bodies define us – that they knows everything they need to know about us with just a cursory glance, and that the news is not good.  This is why size acceptance activism is necessary – because people and societal institutions define, stigmatize, bully and oppress us based on our size – all sanctioned, even encouraged, by the government – based on stereotypes, assumptions and bigotry.  Our bodies are amazing, but they are not all that there is to us, and my activism is working toward a world where, though I will always be willing and happy to advocate for my fat body, there will be no need to do so.

Like my blog?  Here’s more of my stuff!

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If my selling things on the blog makes you uncomfortable, you might want to check out this post.  Thanks for reading! ~Ragen

One thing that fat people often tell me makes them uncomfortable is the idea that they take up too much space.  Here’s what I think about that.  I think that our bodies take up just the right amount of space, whatever size they are.  If they get bigger or smaller they still take up just the right amount of space.  Because they are our BODIES.

It is ridiculous for people to think that they, and anyone smaller than them, take up “the right” amount of space, but those bigger than them take up too much. Spare me.

Nobody takes up too much space just by virtue of existing.  Tall people don’t take up too much space.  People in wheelchairs don’t take up too much space.  Fat people don’t take up too much space.  If you are on a crowded train and you sit with your legs completely splayed out sprawling across as much space as you can, then an argument can be made that you are taking up too much space, but it is impossible that your body takes up too much space just being your body

There are things in the world that are made to fit only people of a certain size but that doesn’t make all other bodies wrong.  It means that when they manufactured those things, they either pretended that bodies outside of those sizes don’t exist, or they simply made the decision not to accommodate people of all sizes.  When I encounter these situations I can choose activism, or not.  If I go into a restaurant and I’m not comfortable in their booths or the arms on their chairs pinch I have a few options.  I can say nothing and suffer through, or I can leave immediately.  I can let the management know about the problem and give them a chance to accommodate me, or I can just decide that if they wanted my business they would have made different choices and so leave and never come back.

Regardless of what I choose the problem resides with the booths and the chairs and not with my body.  I take up exactly the right amount of space and I believe that you do too.

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Become a member: For just ten bucks a month you can keep this blog ad-free, support the activism work I do, and get deals from cool businesses Click here for details

Interviews with Amazing Activists!!  Help Activists tell our movement’s history in their own words.  Support In Our Own Words:  A Fat Activist History Project!

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Dance Classes:  Buy the Dance Class DVDs or download individual classes – Every Body Dance Now! Click here for details 

If my selling things on the blog makes you uncomfortable, you might want to check out this post.  Thanks for reading! ~Ragen

I decided to repost this blog based on a few conversations I had and saw in the last few days.  I see people talk a lot about how we need to “do something,” and how abusive and exploitative things like The Biggest Loser are justified  because so many people are “suffering from obesity”.  I won’t presume to speak for everyone but I will say that while I sometimes do suffer because I’m obese, I’ve never suffered from obesity.

I’m suffering from living in a society where I’m shamed, stigmatized and humiliated because of the way I look. Where I’m oppressed by people who choose to believe that I could be thin if I tried (even though there’s no evidence for that), and that I am, in fact, obligated to try to be thin because that’s what they want me to do – as if personal responsibility means that I’m personally responsible for doing what they think I should do and looking like they think I should look (though this does not seem to be a two way street as none of these people has ever invited by commentary and suggestions on their life and choices.)

I’m suffering from doctors who have bought into a weight=health paradigm so deeply that they are incapable of giving me appropriate evidence-based healthcare.  I’m not just talking about diagnosing me as fat and giving me a treatment plan of weight loss (which is using a completely unreliable diagnostic and then prescribing a treatment that has the opposite result 95% of the time).  I’m also talking about the two doctors who tried to prescribe me blood pressure medication without taking my blood pressure or looking at my chart to see that it is always 117/70 (which means that taking blood pressure medication would have been dangerous).  I’m talking about a doctor trying to get me to lose weight to treat me for Type 2 Diabetes when I actually had anemia.  I’m talking about a doctor telling me that my strep throat was due to my weight. I’m talking about people who are supposed to be scientists abandoning science and research in a way that strongly resembles the time when the Catholic church told Galileo to sit down and shut up.

I’m suffering from a societal witch hunt where instead of putting me in a river they put me on a scale.  People look at my body and feel comfortable blaming me for everything from global warming to healthcare costs despite a lack of evidence for either. People send me ridiculous hate mail, say nasty things to me at the gym (although making fun of a fat person at the gym is something I will never understand).  People who are drenched in thin privilege try to use that position of privilege to make me feel bad about myself.

I’m suffering from the misinformation campaign that is led by the diet industry, weight loss pharmaceutical industry and surgeons who profit from mutilating people who look like me, none of whom are willing to be honest about the risks or horrible success rates of their interventions long term, and some of whom just don’t seem to care.

I am suffering from living in a society that tells me that the cure for social stigma, shame, humiliation and incompetent healthcare is for me to lose weight, when the truth is that the cure for social stigma is ending social stigma.

What has lessened my suffering is that I now realize that this isn’t my fault – although it becomes my problem. One of the reasons that I choose to pursue a life of social justice work is that nothing makes me feel better than knowing that I am doing what I can to fight this and making some kind of difference – whether it’s in the lives of individuals or in society, or just in my own life.  I deserve better and so does everyone else and I and lots of others are fighting for it and we’re going to win.  But to be clear, we shouldn’t have to.  Nobody should have to fight to be treated with basic human respect.   And that’s what I find so sad – all of this suffering of fat people could end right this second and nobody needs to lose a pound – society just needs to stop trying to shame, stigmatize, humiliate and hate people healthy.  We can work on access to healthy foods, we can work on access to safe movement options that people enjoy, we can work on making sure that people have access to appropriate, evidence-based healthcare.  If we give up being a horribly failed example for making people thin, we could be a successful example for giving people options for health.

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The Book:  Fat: The Owner’s Manual  The E-Book is Name Your Own Price! Click here for details

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If my selling things on the blog makes you uncomfortable, you might want to check out this post.  Thanks for reading! ~Ragen

Tom Hanks recently announced to the world that he has been diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes (T2D).  Let’s get the first thing straight – he, like Paula Deen before him, was under NO OBLIGATION to do so.  Celebrities do not owe us every detail of their lives.  Tom Hanks is an actor, his job is to portray a character, not to disclose all of his health issues to the general public.  Can you imagine if your plumber told you that she’d been diagnosed with T2D four years prior and you were completely angry and indignant that she didn’t tell you sooner?  So, though he was under no obligation to do so, Tom Hanks went public as is his choice.

In an interview with David Letterman he said “My doctor said, ‘If you can weigh what you weighed in high school, you’ll essentially be healthy and not have Type 2 diabetes.”  If this is true, if Mr. Hanks did not misunderstand or misspeak, then his doctor is dangerously misinformed.  His weight may have nothing to do with it. Some have suggested that it may be related to the major weight fluctuations he underwent for films like Philadelphia and Castaway.

Before we go too far into this, let’s talk about another issue:  The best thing, the only thing that I believe is ethical, that we can do once someone has been diagnosed with a health issue is provide shame-free, future-oriented care.  Though disease prevention is a reasonable thing to work on in general, it’s not reasonable to talk about it to someone who has a diagnosis already.  At that point what matters is providing options to the patient moving forward that are evidence based, creating a treatment plan (or not) based on informed consent, and never ever blaming or shaming the person for their illness. Nothing good comes from blaming or shaming people about their health issues.

Prescribing weight loss as a T2D intervention is highly problematic.  Choosing a random weight (just as a hypothetical example – what one weighed in high school) is ludicrous.  Tom Hanks did a good job of pointing that out when he said that his response to his doctor was  “Well, I’m gonna have Type 2 diabetes because there is no way I can weigh as much as I did in high school,” which was 96 pounds.

There are many reasons that weight loss as a prescription for T2D is problematic, not the least of which is that weight loss doesn’t work long term. so even if weight loss would cure T2D we would first need to know how to make weight loss successful.  The second issue is that some methods of weight loss will actually cause blood sugar to become higher or to swing dangerously high and low.  When weight loss is credited with improving T2D, typically it is an observation over a short period of time that inexplicably ignores the fact that behavior changes preceded the weight loss and the metabolic change, and so the weight loss and the change in metabolic markers are likely both caused by the behavior changes (thus the weight loss wasn’t the cause of the health improvement, but a side effect of the behaviors that led to the improvement.)  This is significant because it’s likely that the weight loss will be short term and the weight will be regained, but the behavior changes can often continue to help the T2D.

I’m not going to get into treating T2D in this post other than to say that there are many options, that people of all weights get T2D, that there are definitely interventions that don’t involve weight loss, and that the best things I think we could do from a public health perspective is to eliminate shame and blame around it, stop prescribing weight loss as an intervention, and focus on creating behavior-based treatments plans based on patient goals and desires (including medication and “alternative therapies.”

Tom Hanks gets to do whatever he thinks is best to deal with his diagnosis, but let’s remember that he is an actor and his doctor is clearly just practicing medicine.

Like my blog?  Here’s more of my stuff!

The Book:  Fat: The Owner’s Manual  The E-Book is Name Your Own Price! Click here for details

Become a member: For just ten bucks a month you can keep this blog ad-free, support the activism work I do, and get deals from cool businesses Click here for details

Interviews with Amazing Activists!!  Help Activists tell our movement’s history in their own words.  Support In Our Own Words:  A Fat Activist History Project!

Dance Classes:  Buy the Dance Class DVDs or download individual classes – Every Body Dance Now! Click here for details 

If my selling things on the blog makes you uncomfortable, you might want to check out this post.  Thanks for reading! ~Ragen