chargirlgenius | The most highly addictive substance

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The most highly addictive substance

Nope, still not on a diet. But I want to talk about food, overeating, and exercise.

I’ve had a few people point me towards fat-acceptance blogs, and while I’ve read a few of the articles and enjoyed them, I just can’t read them as a matter of course. I’m not dieting, but that doesn’t mean that I’m necessarily happy with my weight, my lifestyle, or my eating habits in general.

No, dammit, I’m ANGRY about it.

The reason I’m not dieting isn’t because I think that I’m naturally supposed to be the weight I am. It’s not because I’m accepting this as just who I am. It’s because diets work for very few people, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not one of them. Dieting just fuels the food imbalance that I’ve come to have in my life.

I’m not naturally fat. Frankly, I don’t think many people are*. We’re naturally a bunch of different shapes and sizes, but naturally, my body is designed to eat whole foods, fruits and veggies, meats, grains, fats, etc. I don’t buy the “genetics made me fat” argument that I’ve seen people make time and time again. If this genetic fat were a real concept it would have always existed, not just since the advent of the drive through. It would exist in other first world countries, the countries where many Americans have their genetic roots. It wouldn’t just start happening in these countries when they started adopting American ways of eating. And yes, I know that there have always been fat people, but all you have to do is travel around the world a little to know that modern American society is different.

*By fat, I don’t mean 10-20 lbs “overweight” according to the faulty BMI charts. I mean 40-50 lbs overweight or more.

Problem is, I think that *some* of the fat acceptance blogs start throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I’ve heard that stat that says that overweight people live longer than underweight ones. That’s fine. But I want to know where that came from. First of all, did they control for the underweight people who were underweight because they were sickly? Did they just consider “overweight”, and not “obese”? Just because people who average 10 lbs overweight (I’m going to stop typing the quotes, but you can fill them in with your mind) live longer doesn’t necessarily mean that people who are 50 lbs overweight live longer.

Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s pathetic that the medical establishment overlooks everything else, and continually prescribes “lose weight” in lieu of looking for the real problem. That’s bullshit. I think that people shouldn’t be judged by their weight, and that the media should have representative populations, etc. etc. I agree with pretty much everything I’ve read about thin privilege. My beautiful and fat friends are still beautiful.

I think that fat-acceptance gains a lot of popularity because, as a society, we’ve spent so much time blaming individuals (or even ourselves) for being fat. We’ve stigmatized it to such an extent that I can’t blame people for saying “STICK IT!”

It’s obviously the right sentiment, but is the right answer to just completely accept weight? To accept 5’6” and 240 as “this is natural”? To accept that when we travel to foreign countries we’re almost always the largest ones in the room?

Isn’t it possible to be more subtle than that? Let’s stop placing the blame on the individuals, but I’m going to stay angry. I’m not ashamed of myself, I’m not blaming myself, and I’m not feeling bad about who I am or what I do.

But I’m pissed.

I’m pissed because our society is fucked up about it. I’m pissed because the American Government lets food companies push their ~~drugs~~ products to us, with absolutely no regard as to its health or appropriateness. I’m pissed because we, as a society, consume products, not food. I’m also pissed because our society has created an environment where it is virtually impossible to move from place to place without the benefit of a car, and we all have to drive to the gym to get enough exercise to stay fit.

I used to cite the old Peter Jennings special, How to Get Fat Without Really Trying. (Better yet, google it, I don’t know how well that link works.) He discussed agricultural subsidies, the role of big business food companies like ConAgra, High Fructose Corn Syrup, and how the government will suggest that all people have to do is a few situps instead of regulating the way that food is advertised. It’s still a fabulous and relevant piece, but it’s far from all that’s out there.

I just heard another interview on NPR yesterday. David Kessler (for my regular readers, don’t let the similarity of that name to another fool you… ;-D ), the commissioner of the FDA from 1990 to 1997, has just released a book, The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite. I haven’t read the book yet, but it extends on Peter Jenning’s piece.

His basic premise is that food companies are marketing a highly addictive substance, and they know that they are doing it. They’re filling foods with fats, salt, and sugar, when they don’t need to have those ingredients, essentially dumbing down our food. They’re processing foods so much that they go down easy and fast, and it ends up being as addictive as cigarettes.

The marketing bombards us at all times of the day, everything is open late, you can get tacos 24 hours a day, and we’re becoming conditioned to eating all of the time. You won’t see somebody in France driving and eating, or walking and eating, but it’s normal here in the US.

I haven’t read it, and I’m still debating reading it, because I know that “diet” books are triggers for me. I’m afraid that he might introduce some sort of diet. I don’t know.

It doesn’t end there. I’ve written over and over again about the physical environment that has been created around us. I don’t need to get into the details again, suffice it to say that our environments are generally not walkable, and natural movement, walking, bike riding, etc. can be rather hazardous to our health, in modern suburban, exurban, and much of urban society.

A couple of months ago, somebody on my flist linked to a study that said that we need to get 250 minutes of intense exercise a week in order to maintain a healthy weight. That’s flipping insane. Let’s ride around in our little boxes, live in neighborhoods where to take a walk or bike ride is taking your life into our own hands, or at very least doesn’t accomplish anything like buying milk or going to work*, and drive over to the gym so we can fake some movement for 250 minutes a week. As we add more lanes to I-66 and drive-thrus to Starbucks and strip malls with acres and acres of parking lot so that you have to drive to a store just across the street.

*I’m not suggesting that individuals are at fault for this, rather it’s become practically the only way to find an affordable house anymore.

So, what’s wrong with this picture? I’m fat. And so are a lot of my friends. Some fatter, some thinner. And we’ve all had enough of fat being stigmatized, of being told that we’re just stuffing our faces, somehow have less willpower than anybody else, etc. I think we can all agree on that. But I’m not “accepting” being fat. I’m dealing with it, but I’m still pissed off about it. But let’s wake up and realize that while it’s not us who are to blame, there IS blame to be had. PLENTY of it.

(And while I enjoy reading Kate Harding, if one more person throws me a link to her when I say that my weight is making my joints ache, I think I’m going to scream.)

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I don't disagree with much / any of this, but I will just offer that the fat acceptance movement is the way it is because if you separate the "good fats" (i.e. the ones that workout a ton and eat "right" and are still fat) from the "bad fats" (i.e. the ones that behave in closer-to-stereotypical-fat ways) then it's just as bad as the rest of society etc. etc. etc.
I do agree with you, though, and I resent how much damn effort it has to take me to get a little exercise. I know fine well that I would certainly weigh 20-30 pounds less if I worked a physical job-- that's what I weighed while I was waitressing-- but I don't have time to get that much exercise in my life. (I was exercising probably 40 hours a week, because more than half my time at work was spent running around, plus I was doing roller derby which was insanely intensive. I got down as low as 175 before my muscles started bulking up and then I switched jobs and my body didn't know what to do.)

But yes-- the problem is systemic, not individual, but if you dare say that someone has any possible way to be thinner than they are, you're against the fat-acceptance people, etc. etc.

I wish I could make my point more clearly but as I just made clear in my previous post, I do not have all the lights on my string illuminated today, so I apologize and this is the best I can do.

I was in the ebst shape of my life whe I lived in England. Eating REAL FOOD, and walking everywhere, because I had to. It was fabulous. I agree with you wholeheartedly.

Amen sistah!

I see your point - and I agree with it - but I also think that while many of the fat acceptance advocates end up reiterating what sounds like a "STICK IT" drum beat, most of them (I think) are really, underneath whatever anger and frustration they're venting, trying to get to just that point as well. (And if you made it through that and are still with me, I'm doing better than I thought!) I don't think they're saying anything different than what you are, but because of how "society" responds to what they say, they end up beating a different set of drums to try to head off the trolls.

I read Kate Harding, but also several others (The F-Word, Shakesville, Bitch PhD, and Sociological Images, among others) that deal either mainly with fat acceptance or with feminism in general (which tends to overlap sometimes) or (esp. Soc Images) with media-shaping of perception and the overriding message I get from all of those is that we're inundated with media about what's normal and it's all constructed and ideal and as far from normal as it comes. And, in my opinion, it's getting worse as we become even more plugged in, more connected all day (and night) every day to technology *designed* to keep us in contact with those messages. (The OMG11!!!1 version of this is the movies or shows where someone's drugged someone else to love them (or something) and as long as the drugged person hears the perpetrator's voice every so often, they stay under the influence.. See also the beginning of The Handmaid's Tale and compare that society just before it went 1984-ish to now.)

I've just started reading "The Body Project" which touches on this as well - the idea that women's bodies (so far mostly young women's, but I think she expands the scope farther on) became commercialized. It's rather sickeningly fascinating - so far she's discussed how menarche was taken out of the female-centered realm through the Victorian era and then firmly established as first a medical and then a commercial experience rather than something focused on the changes in one's body. I think that's happened to *everything* related to bodies - we talk less with our family and friends and rely more and more on what the media tells us is normal. Which starts to brush up against the idea of Television as God, a la Neil Gaiman's American Gods.. *spiral**spiral* *smile*

Our society's emphasis on thinness without context is awful. I know plenty of gorgeous ladies who exercise plenty, make good eating decisions, and are completely healthy but still aren't 'thin' - aka under 120 or 130 lbs. They look absolutely perfect (big hips, cute waists, great breasts!) just as they are, but they're not rail-thin, and they feel guilty for it. There is a HUGE difference between being thin and being a healthy weight, and guilting 'overweight' people doesn't help them either accept their bodies or motivate them appropriately. I don't need to pay attention to my weight, which I'm extremely grateful for. I avoid corn syrup, fast food, and soda not because I'm concerned about my weight but because they're unhealthy and cheap-tasting, but mostly I reap the benefits of having the priviledge of living in a town where I bike or walk to work, class, the grocery store, and the gym (I don't own a car). Most of America doesn't have this priviledge, and both the corn syrup lobby and the necessity of driving everywhere are damning.

Without happy drugs, I don't always have the mental wherewithal to exercise and cook real food. With them, I gain weight no matter how much I exercise and cook healthy food. For that and other reasons I prefer not to be on the happy drugs as long as I'm functioning enough to go to work and not escape into a book every night.

It's prohibitively expensive to eat a varied, healthy diet without cooking for myself.

Exercising regularly helps with the mood and with my joint pain. But when the mood is bad or the joints are bad the activation energy to exercise is MUCH, MUCH higher. I'm hoping my upcoming vacation is enough to reboot me. The last vacation was.

I'm listening to what you are saying. I don't completely agree, but I wanted to say I'm hearing your voice.

I think the of the 'overweight lives longer than underweight' study you're thinking of is the Harvard Alumni study, and if you want to read it I think I can find you a copy. It's everything that is problematic about epidemiology, in a nutshell, especially the part where they try to find out why their data doesn't say what they think it says. (When you come right down to it, the idea that men who are more than 11 lbs lighter in later life than they were when they graduated college may have a life-threatening condition seems a little obvious, doesn't it?) Medical epidemiology seems to suffer from the correlation equals causation fallacy in many, many cases, not just weight.

I am so there with you. I seethe with rage every time those HFCS ads air - sure, it would be okay in moderation, except for the fact that it's in everything.

I so agree that our world is increasingly sedentary - when I lived in Scotland I walked all the time (or took the bus) and I felt really healthy. I even went down a pant size.

I applaud your excellent post and you already know I agree. I'm all for people not being treated inhumanely solely because they are fat. I'm *not* all for making excuses for Big Ag and the FDA who push this mass food seduction that is damn hard to avoid or resist. I'm *not* for pretending my overweight has a lick of anything to do with something not related to my eating habits. I eat too much. Period. However, to stop that life-long habit, I'm going to need more than the equivalent of a recovering alcoholic being sat down in the middle of a bar and being told that I must have half a beer every day in order to live, but no more if I want to be healthy... But nobody is going to stop me if I have more. We are not gods and we will succumb if temptations are overwhelming and constant. This is why America is growing fatter and fatter and fatter. Did you see Wall-E, the movie? Do you remember what the people on the spaceship were like? That's many of us, just a little exaggerated.

One needs 250 minutes a week to lose weight, but 150 to maintain. I'm mostly concerned with losing right now. Sadly, my new commute to MD is working against me - two hours a day of my life wasted sitting in traffic that I'm not active. (Small consolation, I have a hybrid, so my engine doesn't run for much of the drive.)

For the record, I don't "fake movement" when I go to the gym.

I don't embrace being fat, and I don't much care to diet either. I do know I need to eat better, and I absolutely know I need to exercise more. I don't know that I've found the right mix, but I do know that I lost a ton of weight when I was underemployed in 2002-3. I couldn't afford to eat for convenience, and I had a physically taxing job.

What I'm trying to say is that I have all the opportunities and temptations of a thinner person, and yet I'm not thin. The closest male neighbors to my home are all fit. Same America, same town, same street. I can't in good conscience blame any of those for my condition. I know what substances and habits are bad for me; I'm a grownup.

My brother died yesterday from complications of morbid obesity.

I currently weigh at the top end of the "overweight" category on the Bullsh1t Measurement Idiocy charts, but I wear a size small-medium shirt. I have been morbidly obese, according to those charts, and I underwent surgery to fix it.

If I were to get to the "healthy" range according to those charts, I would be distinctly unhealthy.

But my brother still died because he couldn't stop overeating.

Word. Mark Bittman's latest book Food Matters also touches on the problems of the Industrial Food Complex (with a side of Factory Meat). I haven't finished it yet, but there are recipes in the back that I want to try.

I *know* eating whole foods, more veggies, less meat, & getting more activity would be healthier for me & the planet, but it's so frickin' hard! Where's the time in the day? In the precious non-work hours, I choose between cooking & family time, sleep & exercise, great.

AMEN. I believe you've said how I feel better than I have yet been able to do. (Only I'd also talk about our view of exercise as not too important too. We seem to feel that it's not as important as taking a multivitamin every day, when in reality it's far more beneficial.

So mayn 'fat acceptance' websites scream 'cop out' to me. The belief that genetics are to blame certainly is. 'Why should I try to be any healthier in my habits? I can't fight genetics.' But if you look at genetics, I should be far heavier than I am. Every one of my blood relatives are far heavier tha I am. The difference? I was diagnosed as a diabetic at 9 and have HAD to discipline my food intake every bite ever since. It's only since going on dialysis that I got above 145. (PD puts 400 extra calories into my system every day whether I eat it or not.) So no, obesity isn't totally genetic.

I am not a model. But I AM overweight. I NEED to lose weight. It will reduce the pressure on the boe spur in my toe, and I'll be less likely to lose the toe to infection. It will shrink the fat deposits in my liver, and I'll be less likely to go into live failure. Don't point me to a fat acceptance website, encourage me to keep working on it.

Not sure if you have or would read it, but Skinny Bitch is a pretty scathing manifesto for veganism and aside from that part of it (which I'm not into) I found it painfully illuminating on the topic of Big Ag and the FDA, etc. It's freaking harrowing how corrupt the FDA is, how much hard, factual evidence there is for it, and how assimilated I am into the lifestyle that feeds those corporate pockets. I am part of the problem, but I'm not sure where to begin breaking out of it. My life is so settled and ingrained that real change seems overwhelming. *sigh* My biggest problem is my stubborn unwillingness to prioritize the preparing and cooking of healthy meals on a daily basis. The time it takes is fighting with my selfish desire to come home, get dinner over with as quickly as possible, and then veg after a long day of work.

the typing of this response was delayed by the discovery that an almost 2yo boy discovered the butter dish abd was going to attempt to eat the butter instead of his toast...

very well said, much agreed.

fat acceptance, don't know, self-acceptance, yes, very important. i am where i'm at, and that's ok, quirks and all. i'm surrounded by a culture that i'm increasingly needing to tune out.

it's not just the cars or the brain sucking flickering boxes in our living rooms. it's so much more of our technology than that.
you want a bath, turn the knob. that's a far cry from haul the water, heat the water, pour it, etc. imagine you want a cake for a party. you drive to the store and buy one. or you want to bake it yourself. pick up a box and a can of frosting. even if you do want to measure the ingredients, how do you mix it? plug in the mixer. and that's not even including how we get our ingredients. how much muscle used to go into the preparation of one meal. it's not just about what we're eating but how we're preparing it.

oprah (yes, oprah) not too long ago had a show about the healthiest areas of the world/where people lived the longest. in one of them, they focused on the meal that was prepared and how much energy went into making it. it reminded me of those pbs shows where they take modern families and put them in a frontier/colonial setting. very interesting food for thought.

So, have you read Omnivore's Dilemma? Bits of it are a little twee, but Michael Pollan has some really interesting things to say about the politics of food in the U.S., and the way subsidies and USDA rules push packaged food.

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Sorry if this is a little long and meandery..

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