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Nicole Arbour, Dear Fat People, Obesity, Fat Shaming, Youtube, Censorship

I watched the video of youtuber, Nicole Arbour, going off on a tangent in her video, Dear Fat People. Since being posted, the video has amassed more than 17 million views on Facebook and more than half a million views on YouTube. Could it be considered offensive? Sure, but anything can be. She has her right to voice her opinion and she wasn’t making up statistics. She was making a commentary on the state of obesity.

Soon after being uploaded, Arbour’s YouTube channel, as well as the video she’d created, was suspended. She was censored, which I find ironic since Donald Trump and Ann Coulter are still allowed to speak in public.

I was not offended. I am a fat person. I got that way all on my own. I can’t blame her for pointing it out. Besides, I agree with her, 99% of the time being fat is not a disability but something we have done to ourselves.

Is it fun? Hell, no. Are there extenuating circumstances? Hell, yeah. Hello, years of eating disorders can actually cause your metabolism to say, “Fuck you, Big mama. You tried to cheat the system. Chew on that!” And then bam! It stops working. Can you still lose weight? YES! Is it super, duper ridiculously hard. YES!

Are there people with pituitary tumors? Yes. People with thyroid problems? Yes! People who gain weight on medications or from autoimmune disorders? Yes! Are there people who get fat by absolutely no doing of their own? YES!!! I am not one of those people. I am fat because, while yes my metabolism is on protest after years of unhealthy eating disorders, I also eat a lot of bad foods and don’t move nearly enough.

That woman, Nicole Arbour, who everyone is pissed off at for “fat shaming” is merely telling the truth. And yes, fat shaming is awful and mean. Was she a bit harsh? Yes. Maybe harsh is what we need sometimes to shock us enough to wake us up from our food coma, our denial and our assisted suicide.

I hate to say it but she had some good points. Some points most of America, especially the food industry, needs to hear. Look, I don’t ride carts in the grocery store or let my fat spill over onto others when I ride in a plane (or at least I hope not, if I do…sorry.) I do sweat like a whore in church when I try to run through the airport. It’s not pretty but I never cut the line, even when my knees do hurt at the airport.

Being fat is not a disability, it is a state of being. Usually, one we can change with diet and exercise. It’s not easy. If it were, we’d all be looking like models and feeling great, living to 107-years-old. But, honestly, put down the Mountain Dew, the once a day Starbucks, the Mega sized French fries and the $5 pizzas. Make better choices and park a little further, walk a little more. Love your body and love yourself and make sure that you are around for the people who love you most, especially the little ones.

As for Nicole Arbour, I feel like taking her video down is censorship. Put it back up. If people don’t like it, they don’t have to watch it. Just because we don’t like what we hear doesn’t mean someone else doesn’t have the right to say it. I might not agree with everything Nicole Arbour said and it’s certainly not politically correct but it is true in some circumstances. Honestly, I’d prefer that if we’re going to censor something, let’s please take away public speaking privileges to bigots like Trump and Coulter.

Sticks and Stones people. Arbour has no power over you, unless you give it to her. If you don’t approve, just ignore her.

 

What did you think of Nicole Arbour and her Dear Fat People video?

 

 

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Yesterday, I stumbled across the above photo with the caption

“ I’m too poor to be healthy! “

“If I was well off, I’d be able to buy fresh food and afford a gym membership!”

 

It was something I saw and immediately found hard to digest. Don’t get me wrong, I KNOW that fresh food is expensive; obscenely so. We do live in a world where it is hard and expensive to be healthy because we live in a world where everything is supersized and instant gratification is expected at all times. People are busy and there is no time. No money. See, how I did that? There ARE a million excuses as to why our lives are not as we would like them to be. This caused quite a stir on my Facebook timeline.

 

As someone who had active eating disorders for 8 years and who is now overweight I can tell you a few things

 

1) Even if you have all the money in the world and all the fresh food and gym memberships, if you don’t use them they don’t work. Believe me, middle class suburbanites all over the world can attest to this. Am I right?

 

2) Even if you are the “ideal” weight that does not secure that your life will be “ideal”. That’s a myth. I know. I had the ideal weight and body size and I still “needed” to lose “just 5 more pounds”. If you don’t fix your perception of yourself, you can’t be happy because no matter what you look like, you will still be unhappy on the inside. Being skinny is not a magic happy solution.

 

3) You have to be accountable for and to yourself in order to change yourself. Blaming others for your situation is giving up. I firmly believe that where there is a will, there is always a way. You only have to be willing to look for it and work at it.

 

4) The real reason most people are overweight, myself included, is simple; lack of movement, an abundance of unhealthy choices and not knowing correct portion sizes (who could blame them. We live in a world of indulgence and excess.)

 

** Also, I am completely aware that there are people with health and medical issues that make losing weight even harder than normal or even impossible but most of us are fat, if we are honest with ourselves, because of life choices we make. I made the choice to starve myself for 8 years. My metabolism is shot dead but it’s not impossible. I just need to work harder at it than most but most days, I still choose to eat the pizza or drink the Latte because I want it. I sit on my ass all day at a desk working. This is why I am overweight. I can’t blame anyone or anything. No one shoved the food in my mouth. No one forced me to not prioritize working out. Only I can do that and it doesn’t cost anything to walk.

 

So, I did my research and I found the real story behind the salacious title ( we all know how online publications like to do that) unfortunately, she really is full of shit, as I originally thought. Here is the story from the Daily Mail UK..

 

An obese mother-of-two who lives on benefits says she needs more of taxpayers’ money to overhaul her unhealthy lifestyle.

 

Christina Briggs, 26, from Wigan, says she hates being 25 stone (350 pounds for you Americans) but she can’t do anything about it because she can only afford junk food. Meanwhile, exercise is out of the question because she doesn’t have the funds to join a gym.

 

The single mother told Closer Magazine: ‘It’s not easy being overweight and on benefits. If I was well off, I’d be able to buy fresh food and afford a gym membership. 

 

‘I tried swimming but it cost £22 a month and it meant I had to cut back on my favourite pizza and Chinese takeaways.’

Unemployed Christina gets £20,000 in benefits a year and lives in a council house with her two children by different fathers, Helena, 10, and Robert, two.

She left school as a teenager after falling pregnant with her daughter following a one night stand.

 

Christina Biggs, poor, unhealthy

The family feast everyday on takeaways, chocolate and crisps as Christina says they can’t afford low fat foods. As a result, the mother is currently a dress size 26.

She has been warned by her GP that her health is in danger because of her size – medical complications relating to obesity include heart disease and diabetes. Christina is desperate not to leave her two children without a mother and doesn’t want her size to take her to an early grave.

But she insists ‘it’s not my fault – healthy food is too expensive’.

She feels her only hope is for the government to give her more money so she can afford to buy fruit and vegetables and join a gym.

She also believes she should be paid to lose weight as that would give her the motivation to fight the flab.

She told the magazine:

I need more benefits to eat healthily and exercise. It would be good if the government offered a cash incentive for me to lose weight. I’d like to get £1 for every pound I lose, or healthy food vouchers. 

 

‘If the price of healthy food was lowered that would help, too. I need help, but I need it from the government.’

 

She added that she can’t get a job to gain more money because she’s needed at home to care for her children, especially as her daughter has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and issues with her kidneys.

 

She explained:

‘There’s no way I could get a job. I don’t feel bad about the taxpayer funding my life and my child’s medical problems, because I don’t treat myself or buy anything excessive. I just get enough money to live on – the taxpayers should help fund my diet.’  

There you have it, all in her own words.  It’s Thursday and this entire situation needs a throat punch. She KNOWS that she needs to exercise and eat more healthy. She knows that much. BUT she is making excuses and blaming others. Does she need more nutrition education? Yes! Does the cost of healthy food need to be more affordable? Hell yes to all of that! But are all of her life problems because the government is not funding her weight loss program? HELL NO!

You can’t tell me with cabinets filled with junk and refusing to give up on her favorite Chinese take-out that her current weight situation is not entirely of her own doing. Choices my friends. Buy in season veggies and fruits. Shop sales. Walk. Move. Buy frozen or canned fruits and veggies, they beat a bag of chips any day.
Here are some links to help you eat healthy on a budget:

Real Food on a Food Stamp Budget

Eating Healthy on a Budget

Good and Cheap Eat well on $4 a day

Get Healthy on A budget

Ways to Stay Healthy on a Budget

Free Online Workouts

What do you think?

Is she too poor to be healthy?

 

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parenting, bad parenting, obese child, obese children, obesity, unhealthy, unhealthy eating

If you think childhood obesity is not a real thing, then you would be wrong.

It is alive and well in suburbia. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and I believe it. Parents you are responsible for the options your child has.

I was at the pool the other day with my children and I saw an adorable little girl who looked about 4-years-old and weighed around 60 pounds. She wasn’t super tall; she was tiny so that is why I noticed her immediately. She was portly and it wasn’t just a little baby fat, she looked well on her way to obesity and that is what concerned me the most. I know people can come in all shapes and sizes and still be healthy but this little girl was breathing heavy just from walking and that doesn’t seem healthy to me.

I have two little girls and I know that weight fluctuates and kids have baby fat that they outgrow but this child had a substantial amount of weight to lose and she was so young that I was alarmed for her health. Before you get mad at me for discussing a child’s weight, know now that I am not talking trash about this child. I feel sorry for her because 1) it’s not her fault. A child’s diet is not her own responsibility at that age. 2) I know what it’s like to be overweight and have to lose weight and it is not fun or easy, for anyone. 3) Just the fact that she is so overweight, will make her an easy target at a young age for bullies. NO, that is not fair and I wish the world wasn’t like this but it is.

When children are small, their parents are responsible for what they eat, how much they eat and when they eat it. Sure, there are instances where children have a medical condition or have to take medication for a condition that causes weight gain but I think a lot of the time, it can be attributed to lazy parenting. Not all of the time, of course but there are definitely times when it’s easier to just give in. Giving in to kids who want to eat the chips and cookies rather than have the fight about eating the healthier options. I am not saying kids shouldn’t be allowed to enjoy snacks and sweets occasionally, I am saying everything in moderation.

Children are a lot more tech savvy than they used to be. There is a lot more tech available to use. When it’s hot outside, a lot of kids would rather lay on the couch playing Minecraft in the air conditioning than go outside and ride their bikes. Kids these days have access to 600 channels, endless amounts of songs on Spotify, movies on Netflix and games on the computer. Even if they are educational games and movies, it equals children who sitting on their butts a lot more of the time than they are moving around.

Pair all of that sitting around with fast food this, greasy that and super-sized everything plus soda and chips and preservatives and dyes and you have children who are moving less and eating more, more junk and less clean, organic food. Kids are eating out of boredom and mindlessly eating while sitting in front of the television. It doesn’t help that we live in a society where clean food is priced so high that you have to donate a kidney to provide safe, healthy food for your children to eat. As parents, we have got to stop this cycle before the entire world is morbidly obese and the average life span is 50.

This little girl didn’t just gain all that weight over night, none of us do. It happened over time. This little girl is also, sadly, not an anomaly, I see lots of overweight children. I’m not perfect and neither is my family. We make bad choices sometimes and I’ve had to work really hard to make sure that my kids don’t just exist on chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese and popsicles. It’s a lot of work raising children to be healthy and teaching them to make the right choices even when I am not around. It takes diligence, commitment and hard-work.

It’s our responsibility to prevent our children from suffering from childhood obesity.

It gets frustrating and sometimes you just want to give in and sometimes you can. But as a parent, you can’t give in every time your child wants something because even though that might be the easy choice right now and it might make them happy, right now, in the long run you could be teaching them to make the wrong choices and to over indulge in things that are bad for them.

I’m not writing this post because I think it’s fun to point out that a little girl is overweight. I am writing this post because I know where this road of unhealthy leads. Eventually, people will make fun of her for being overweight. Kids are cruel. Then she will begin to slowly believe that if only she could lose a few pounds, she could be happy ( which is NOT true by the way), then she might develop low self-esteem, body dysmorphic disorder and maybe even suffer from eating disorders in search of the illusive bikini bridge and the thigh gap. She might spend the rest of her life hating her body and worse than all of that she could develop heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and several other diseases as a result of being obese since childhood. Then you die.

I’m not saying this little girl needs to be skinny. I am saying that her mother needs to step in and do something before her weight becomes an out of control problem that she has to live with for the rest of her life. Her mother needs to take responsibility for her daughter. Our children need to be healthy and it’s our responsibility as parents to give them every opportunity and tool to do so.

Do you think letting our children become obese makes us bad parents?

Update: I am fully aware that I don’t know this child or her mother or their particular situation. When I saw them by the sign, it made me think about parenting choices. We all make mistakes and none of us are perfect but we have to try.

How do you prevent your own children from falling into the trap of childhood obesity?

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Throat Punch Thursday,fat shaming

Well, if you think the world is going to hell in a hand basket because of the obesity epidemic, you don’t know about fat shaming. There is a new method to the madness, scientifically backed, fat shaming! WooHoo because what more does a fat girl need than a  little fire set under her big arse to motivate her to lose the weight.

What a crock of bullshit. I have been a skinny girl and I have been a fat girl and fat shaming does not help. The only purpose it serves is to shame the overweight person and make them feel bad about themselves.

obese woman

Is Fat Shaming the Answer to Obesity?

A prominent bioethicist, Daniel Callahan, is proposing a new push for what he says is an “edgier strategy” to promote weight loss: ginning up social stigma. Edgier? Is that bioethicist code for douchier? Because that is what I am hearing.

Daniel Callahan, a senior research scholar and president emeritus of The Hastings Center, put out a new paper this week calling for a renewed emphasis on social pressure against heavy people — what some may call fat-shaming — including public posters that would pose questions like this:

“If you are overweight or obese, are you pleased with the way that you look?”

Sure because I’ve never met anyone who was overweight and who was happy about it. There are people who learn to be comfortable in their own skin, which is awesome, but I don’t know too many people who set out to be obese, well, with the exception of that crazy woman who wanted to be the fattest lady in the world and end up dying of heart attack.

Callahan outlined a strategy that applauds efforts to boost education, promote public health awareness of obesity and curb marketing of unhealthy foods to children. This I can get behind.

But, he added, those plans could do with a dose of shame if there’s any hope of repairing a nation where more than a third of adults and 17 percent of kids are obese.

This is where I think he loses his mind. Does he expect us to shame kids? Because there is no way anybody in their right mind could believe that shaming a child can cure obesity. It can cause body issues, it can cause eating disorders, it can even cause suicide but it will not make a kid want to lose weight and it will probably cause a mama to want to beat the asshole who makes her baby cry. I know if anyone ever made my kid feel bad about themselves, they would have me to deal with and it wouldn’t be pleasant.

This guy may be smart when it comes to bioethics but he doesn’t know squat about helping obese people and children losing weight. Ever heard of a bed side manner? He gets a throat punch with a side of roundhouse kick to the head for being an incredibly insensitive douche canoe.

Forget Fat Shaming, Let’s Practice Moron Shaming

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Judgemental Doctors, Throat Punch Thursday, Doctors

Throat Punch Thursday,Judgmental Doctor,doctors, obesity,weight management

Judgmental Doctor You Suck

Tonight’s Throat Punch is brought to you by a judgmental doctor. Don’t get me wrong some of my favorite people in the world are doctors; my brother in law, one of my best friends to name a few. I realize that they are, in fact, human; just like you and I. But I expect a standard of professionalism when they are practicing medicine. What they say at home, that’s between them and their HIPAA conscience. But when a doctor brings assumption and judgment into the exam room, we have a problem .

I’ve been having persistent coughing fits for the past 2 weeks and decided to go to the local RediMed, as I don’t have a GP here yet. The doctor walked in the exam room ( after I had waited 2 hours to see her) with a less than enthusiastic attitude, as if I had done something to deserve to be sick. It was apparent from the moment she walked into the room looking through her nose at me, that she was a judgmental doctor.  Worse still a cold bitch, as the room dropped 10 degrees when she walked in.

She began by asking me the standard questions. How long have you had the cough? Are you feeling any sinus pressure? Are you feeling any pressure in your ears? I say yes. She asked, “Pressure? or PAIN?” Her tone was as if I had misunderstood her question. I had not. She had a very thick accent. I’ve grown up immersed in thick accent as my fathers mother tongue is not English. I don’t usually have an issue understanding accents but hers was quite thick.

Judgmental Doctor, Throat Punch Thursday, Doctors, Body issues, weight, body dysmorphic disorder

Judgmental Doctor You are No Lady

“Do you have any allergies?” Yes, I have seasonal allergies.

“When you cough are you bringing anything up? Yes (I’m assuming she was referring to phlegm).

This is when it all fell apart.

At this point she is looking at me, as if I have totally done something wrong, “You really have to watch what you are eating late at night!”  I eat at 5:30 every night.

I have no f*cking idea what she is talking about.

“You must cut back on the greasy food! Take some Prilosec and stop eating these kinds of food!!!! ” She’s practically yelling. I feel as if I am on trial.

“Stop drinking all the sugar, sodas and coffee at night. You need to watch what you eat so you don’t destroy your esophagus with your unhealthy eating habits.”

I don’t!I don’t! I don’t!

What the f*ck is she talking about? Since when did a cough warrant a scolding on non-existent eating habits?

Judgmental Doctor Say What

Then it hits me like a ton of rocks hurled by sizists at the fat kid. Somehow, when I was explaining to her that when I lie down at night the coughing fits get worse, she heard “I’m a big fat asshole who has acid reflux because I can’t control my binge eating at night. I drink 2 liters of soda and pots of coffee with reckless abandon because I just don’t give a shit about my health!”

She was being very condescending and rude.

I know I am out of shape. I am heavier than I ever wanted to be.

I DO NOT HAVE ACID REFLUX.

I HAVE NEVER HAD HEARTBURN. I don’t even know what it feels like.

I came in for COUGHING FITS not a judgmental doctor with a side of asshole bedside manner. Who did she think she was?

I seldom drink caffeine, never at night. I’ve never been a binge eater. I’m a restrictor. To add insult to injury, I’m pretty sure that the reason I am as heavy as I am now is partly from all the damage I did to my body when I was in the throes of my 8 year battle with eating disorders. Doesn’t this bitch know I have body dysmorphic disorder?

Of course she doesn’t, she’s just the freaking drive thru of doctors and she doesn’t have my full medical records. That insensitive bitch just used her judgmental doctor powers on someone who has to talk herself into accepting herself on a daily basis. I’ve never felt so ugly in my life.

I was deflated. Enraged. Wanted to throat punch her and cry simultaneously. On top of everything else, it’s shark week and I’m not feeling especially happy with excessive water weight that I’m holding.

Thanks for the pep talk, Dr. Kevorkian.My throat Punch goes to the wicked stupid, judgmental doctor with the sizist attitude and atrocious bedside manor.

Hope you will link up your Throat Punch Thursday posts with me. I wanted to extend a personal invite to all of you to link up any posts in which you air a grievance, call out any asshatery,or just dole out a well deserved throat punch to one of societies shortcomings or political douche canoes. If not this week, I do it EVERY single Thursday and would love for any or all of you to join in! All you have to do is grab the Throat Punch Thursday button ( listed under the “about” tab at the top of the page), put it in your blog post and link up. If you’d like to stay in the Throat Punch know, I’d love it if you would email subscribe ( as GFC will stop working soon). Just say No to a Judgmental doctor.

Photo Credit

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Maura Kelly, sex and relationship blogger for Marie Claire, wrote a post yesterday titled, Should “Fatties” Get a Room? (Even on TV?).The post was about the sitcom Mike & Molly, “the show centers around a couple who meet at an Overeaters Anonymous group  has drawn complaints for its abundance of fat jokes [as well as] cries from some viewers who aren’t comfortable watching intimacy between two plus-sized actors.” In her post, she expressed her disdain for having to watch two “Fatties” make out, or simply walk across a room. This post garnered a lot of attention on the blogosphere and spread through twitter like a wildfire. I know, I was there..fanning the flames. I thought, what a monumental asshole this broad is behaving like. My next thought, who the hell is running that joint Marie Claire? Are there no editors? Talk about free speech!

OK, so she wrote a post about a sitcom. The problem is how she wrote it. The voice she used was very condescending and insulting. I agree with her that I don’t like to watch two people make out either but it has nothing to do with size, shape, color; I simply do not want to feel like I am watching porn. If that is what I wanted, well, I’d let the Big Guy choose something. But Ms. Kelly just kept repeatedly stepping in the proverbial dog shit. It was as if she backed up and stepped in it all over again, just to make sure she got it on her shoe. As evidenced by this quote

So anyway, yes, I think I’d be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other … because I’d be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a very, very fat person simply walk across a room — just like I’d find it distressing if I saw a very drunk person stumbling across a bar or a heroine addict slumping in a chair.

As if that were not enough, she continued on

But … I think obesity is something that most people have a ton of control over. It’s something they can change, if only they put their minds to it.
(I’m happy to give you some nutrition and fitness suggestions if you need them — but long story short, eat more fresh and unprocessed foods, read labels and avoid foods with any kind of processed sweetener in them whether it’s cane sugar or high fructose corn syrup, increase the amount of fiber you’re getting, get some kind of exercise for 30 minutes at least five times a week, and do everything you can to stand up more — even while using your computer — and walk more. I admit that there’s plenty that makes slimming down tough, but YOU CAN DO IT! Trust me. It will take some time, but you’ll also feel so good, physically and emotionally. A nutritionist or personal trainer will help — and if you can’t afford one, visit your local YMCA for some advice.)

This part is simply insulting to injury because you see Ms. Kelly has had self-admitted issues with eating disorders, anorexia in particular, herself. So, really she shouldn’t be giving diet and nutritional advice to anyone. ANYONE! She claims to be recovered. Of course, having had my own experience with eating disorders, I know that being a recovered Anorexic is about the same as being a “recovered” alcoholic. You may have stopped the behavior but you have to take it one day at a time because you can’t unlearn what you’ve already become privy to. You may decide that it’s not the way for you and stop the behavior but your mind still knows the path.

I’m no shrink but I’d say, from my own past experience, I had NO tolerance for overweight people because I was insane with an obsession with my own weight. I felt like if I could control myself from eating, what I ate, how much I ate, when I ate, if I ate; then why couldn’t others show the same self-control? You develop a disgust because partly they don’t have your self-control, but with that, they also do not have your misery. The misery that wanting brings and this causes some jealousy and resentment. I’m not saying she still has eating issues but I think maybe she still needs to work through to her own resolution. This is not an excuse and probably not understandable to anyone who has not experienced these issues.

I’ve been “recovering” from these issues for 13 years and I still battle with acceptance of my own body. I have chosen to do it the right way, the slow..healthy, working out, eating the right way. With the time it takes the body to heal it also gives the mind and spirit time to heal, appropriately. I do not cringe at heavy set people anymore. That was my own self-loathing being externalized. I say to each his own. There is a terrible obesity epidemic in the United States and, for health’s sake, I hope people can come around to healthier lifestyles.

There is nothing wrong with the show Mike and Molly, it is representative of a large part of our population. What’s wrong with having a show that lets us see these two people falling in love? Don’t they deserve the same happiness that anyone else deserves? Shame on you Maura Kelly for projecting your own issues onto the overweight people of the world. Does it make you feel better to make them feel worse? Just remember how miserable you felt when you were obsessing over your weight, and now realize that your piece may have done that for some poor overweight woman or girl! If you’re not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

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