How many other posts are going to be about this article today and in the coming weeks? I fully intended this to just be a tweet [and Facebook] post, but I had a really hard time staying within my 140 characters and not stringing together 4 or 5 tweets. So here we are…
The post in question on Marie Claire [magazine]: Should “Fatties” Get a Room? (Even on TV?)
This post can’t get much more offensive. And not just to me, but to the thousands of commenters, Tweeters and Facebook posts degrading the author, the magazine and, of course, the post. I have my own issues with weight loss and never would have seen this blog post, as I don’t read Marie Claire (and now, never will), had it not been all over my Twitter and Facebook feeds.
Do I want the author, or her editor, fired? I dunno. Do I want them reprimanded? Yes. Seriously reprimanded! The author wrote about an emotional subject and, as it turns out, she’s struggled with anorexia for many many years. The editor, however, published her rant. I saw posted elsewhere that had she been talking about a different race, they would both be prosecuted almost immediately.
It’s just disgusting that people think like this. Do people look at me and think that I am repulsive, vile and just plain disgusting for being so fat? If so, I really hope that they don’t pretend to be my friend. Anyone that thinks that way needs to get the hell out of my life. Not because I don’t want to deal with snide comments, but because I have no use for negativity or fake-to-my-face people in my life. Unfriend me, it’s OK. You don’t have to tell me that this is why.
Phew.
My thoughts on the post? Yes, I know I am fat. I am also healthy, according to my last doctor. In fact, I am the biggest I’ve been in my entire 34 years. And yet I love myself. Most of the time. And my husband, G-d love him, loves me too. In fact, he’s told me that I don’t need to lose weight unless it really bothers me or will make having kids easier on me. Total acceptance even on the days when I don’t accept myself.
That's me, far left. 10 years old in 1986. Hello 80s hair!
What a major change it is to hear that. My mom was always extremely skinny – size 2 or 4 at their wedding 39 years ago – and after having 3 children, she obviously gained weight. Some of my earliest memories, and those I wish I could remove from my brain, are those of being forced to go to diet meeting after diet meeting with my mom, her friends and their “fat” daughters. I’ve seen pictures of myself between ages 10-13 (like the one to the left) and I simply wasn’t a fat kid. We had no video games. We played outside a lot. I was healthy. We biked, skated, and climbed trees. I ate a mostly normal diet. We were all forced to eat “rabbit” food because that’s what mom cooked.
One of my most vivid memories from my pre-teen years was the absolute joy at being able to fit into my size 29 [waist] Guess? jeans. I was ecstatic. I was also just going through puberty, so those jeans didn’t last long when the hips expanded into a perfect hourglass figure.
In the last few years, I decided I did want to make a change. It took every ounce of will to join Weight Watchers. I joined, I lost some weight, then I lost my desire to continually count points and not truly enjoy going out. So I quit, and gained weight back. I decided I would rather enjoy my life as best I could.
As it turns out, you only live once. I know! Duh. But yeah, I choose enjoyment over constant struggles.
Even now, with my last batch of blood tests, my doctor is crazy thrilled about how perfect my lab work is. She is of the mindset that healthy means healthy no matter what size your clothes say. Yes, I loved her. She never once said I needed to lose weight. She wasn’t concerned with me being pre-diabetic since my numbers were perfect. She even flat out told me I was far healthier than half her super skinny, always dieting patients with horrible lab results. Them, she was worried about. Me, not so much.
Her main concern for me was how much dieting at such an early age had traumatized me. She promoted healthy eating, not buying frozen dinners chock full of preservatives and other crap, and moving more frequently. Since then, I won’t even touch frozen dinners. Most of our meals are home made. I don’t touch fast food if I can help it. (And by that, I mean I eat fast food like once every few months.) I actually eat very little and pick at my food unless I’m actually famished.
So there you have it… my 2 cents on the subject. OK, more like 5 since this turned out longer than I’d anticipated. 😀
There is a lot of anti-fat mindset in our society because people think that if you just stopped eating “so much” and exercised, you’d be skinny in a week. That is not how it works, and people refuse to look further. A lot of obesity can be related to depression or other illnesses. No one would talk trash about a person for being ill, but they pass blanket judgment on all overweight people as lazy. Angry!
What does your current doctor think about this? I know you’re working on pregnancy soon, so I figure the doctor you’re seeing in Miami has a lot of good input about it. Or is that the doctor you’re talking about that had the blood tests done? I don’t know much about it, but I hvae a few friends on lj who are trying to get pregnant and their doctors have given good advice for their body types. THAT is who you should listen to, not some dumb ass online. But you knew all of this 🙂
Some of the comments I read were of the same mindset. With all the Fat Acceptance and Fat /= Unhealthy out there, it is still shocking at how negative and downright nasty some people can be. The BMI charts are the biggest farce on the planet and my doc said to never even bother with them. She also hated scales, but that’s another story. And yes, she was thin, but she was more of a nutritionist then a “scare the hell outta the fat girl” doc. 🙂
I am yet to find (or look for) a doc down here bc we have no insurance. The doc I’m talking about is the one from NC that was just amazing! I’m doing all sorts of research and reading books about health and nutrition. I know for starters that I need to eat a lot more than I currently eat.. or at least eat balanced meals and not just a piece of meat or plateful of veggies. LOL
Next step, biting the bullet and actually finding a nutritionist/ doctor/ midwife office. 🙂
You know, it’s not about the image the media sets forth — it’s about our overall health. If the numbers look good and you personally feel good, who cares what someone else thinks? Marie Claire doesn’t get to make the rules, and I don’t think they deserve a reader base if they’re going to perpetuate the awful images that con vulnerable young women into eating disorders just to measure up to the unrealistic standards set forth by a publication looking to capitalize on the misfortune of others.