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Let’s get this straight; Beth Ditto is a deadset legend for not buying the bull that to be a successful singing chick (meant in a reclaiming the language kind of way), you have to be skinnier than a model with a smack habit. Let’s get this straight; Beth Ditto is a bloody superstar for not believing all those hideous magazine articles that tell women they’re unclean and ugly if certain sections of their bodies aren’t waxed into a state of prepubescence. Nevertheless, what was The Age thinking on the weekend when it ended the first paragraph of an article about Ms Ditto with a kind of “that’s so cool” support for the self-harming habit of overeating?
Not everyone recognises Beth Ditto’s name straight off, but they know exactly who you mean when you say, “You know, the fat rock star”. There are so few women in rock and even fewer – i.e. none, apart from Ditto – who are anything other than whip-thin that she stands right out, even if all you have seen of her band the Gossip is the poster for Standing in the Way of Control, its last album. There’s Ditto, with her big round arms raised to form a letterbox across her face and her black-rimmed eyes peeping through. No track marks on this punk rocker’s arms, just the dimpling left by too many doughnuts. How great is that?
At the risk of being shouted down to the ninth circle of Hell, I’d say it isn’t very great at all.
Male or female, to be that weight is unhealthy. Since when did obesity cease to be negative, and turn into a blow for women’s rights?
Well there are two quite different things going on here (at least).
1) It’s undeniably cool that a fat woman who is not a virtuoso singer is having success in music. Basically her attitude and moxy as a performer is behind her success, and this has historically rarely been enough unless you’re also svelte-ish. She’s not hiding behind voluminous clothing, she just struts her stuff because that’s how performance is meant to be done. This has got to be a huge source of inspiration for girls (mostly) everywhere, who are routinely discouraged from putting themselves out there because they don’t look right.
2) She isn’t real healthy at that weight, but that’s a matter between Beth and her doctor IMHO. It’s drawing a pretty long bow to suggest that impressionable kiddies would deliberately make themselves fat to emulate her.
perhaps they’re saying that doughnut dimples are far better than track marks?
“Male or female, to be that weight is unhealthy. Since when did obesity cease to be negative, and turn into a blow for women’s rights?”
Thanks for your comments, Luke. I don’t think it is a “blow” for women’s rights. It doesn’t feel powerful to be uncomfortable and unhealthy. It was a bit weird when the issue of Ditto posing nude for NME was raised on certain feminist blogs and lots of women commenting immediately took offence at any suggestion that obesity was a health risk. That’s a fairly basic fact, isn’t it?
Surely the strongest women are neither too skinny nor too fat (and I say this as a woman who has had, ahem, struggles with my weight).
“It’s undeniably cool that a fat woman who is not a virtuoso singer is having success in music. Basically her attitude and moxy as a performer is behind her success, and this has historically rarely been enough unless you’re also svelte-ish. She’s not hiding behind voluminous clothing, she just struts her stuff because that’s how performance is meant to be done. This has got to be a huge source of inspiration for girls (mostly) everywhere, who are routinely discouraged from putting themselves out there because they don’t look right.”
Great points, FDB. She must get sick of constantly being referred to as “the fat singer”, though. Blech.
“2) She isn’t real healthy at that weight, but that’s a matter between Beth and her doctor IMHO. It’s drawing a pretty long bow to suggest that impressionable kiddies would deliberately make themselves fat to emulate her.”
Well, impressionable kiddies have been accused of starving themselves to try and look like their idols, so why couldn’t it happen the other way?
Sorry I think I was typing while you made your comment, Barry.
“perhaps they’re saying that doughnut dimples are far better than track marks?”
Well, donut dimples might be better than track marks but some people abuse food the way others abuse drugs.
Maybe I’m am getting too old but I recall many soul and R+B singers were and still are amply proportioned. Rene Geyer for example though I haven’ t seen her perform for a few years now.
Or are old singers not seen or heard ?
Geez, I thought the pic was a scene from the new series of Little Britain, where the only queer in the village turns into a rock star.
Ouch, Adrian.
“Maybe I’m am getting too old but I recall many soul and R+B singers were and still are amply proportioned. Rene Geyer for example though I haven’ t seen her perform for a few years now.
Or are old singers not seen or heard ?”
Depends what you are listening to I suppose, “punk”. Certainly the older singers are not the ones we see in all those magazines and pop music shows etc etc
Ms Geyer is still around and performing. Great voice. Great version of “(If Loving You is Wrong), I Don’t Want to be Right”. I think she has lost some weight in her later years.
PTID – that’s kind of what I’m getting at with my “fat woman who is not a virtuoso singer” comment. Beth Ditto is not a particularly “good” singer (contra Aretha Franklin, that lass from George etc) which would normally rule out a fat woman. Usually good looks as defined by the tenor of the times are required to get away with not singing like an angel – Beth does it with energy and individual style.
I’m quite looking forward to seeing them at Meredith, and frankly I’d rather see Beth naked (I hear this is fairly common at their shows) than the horrid muddy harpies who accosted me after The Slits last time I was there.
Female or male, there are significantly more health problems in western society from being over-weight than being under-weight.
The attitude that it is a matter between patient and doctor ignores the fact that in Australia my taxes and medicare levy pay for others health care. Being overweigth is a self control issue. The same reasoning why we legislate for things like smoking, drink driving, wearing seat belts and bike helmets etc etc etc applies to obesity. Under the partially socialised health system there are no punishments for being fat. In fact, being fat is subisidised through free health care, but the costs of keeping fit and healthy generally come straight out of the hip pocket.
I’d rather keep seeing lots of thin role models.
“I’m quite looking forward to seeing them at Meredith, and frankly I’d rather see Beth naked (I hear this is fairly common at their shows) than the horrid muddy harpies who accosted me after The Slits last time I was there.”
Now there’s a visual image. Must have been horrid to have been accosted? : )
It’d be good to be seeing healthy role models, Razor.
“Being overweigth is a self control issue.”
Mmm, I think it’s more complex than that. I’m not sure the grossly obese child I saw at the shops shoving ice cream into his mouth was going to easily get over the bad habits he was being allowed to indulge in as a child. Also, I think overeating can be psychologically based. However, I think this is an issue we do have to get real about.
I don’t think you can compare singers in a blues/r&b (old skool)/soul tradition and punk/rock/pop in terms of what weight means as a symbol etc and so on. Completely different traditions and quite separate issues for a whole lot of cultural reasons.
I was just listening to Luther Ingram sing “If Loving You is Wrong …” from a great Wattstax compilation. But .. just trying to think, don’t think I’ve ever heard a woman sing it.
Yes, fat is a feminist issue. Here’s why:
Women have proportionally more body fat than men. The Cartesian dualism model for sexism requires that all differences between male and female be made markers for good (male) and bad (female). Therefore, muscular/hard = masculine, while fat/soft = feminine. If the reverse were true, fat-hating would not have the legs it does. Lots of muscles = good, lots of fat = bad.
In a male dominant culture, women serve as that mirror Virginia Wolfe wrote about, which reflects men back to themselves doubled in size. Therefore male = large, which means female must = small. Non-small women defy this duality and therefore must be cast a monstrous (plus, we take up “too much” room). Woman as mirror, woman as goal, object, prize, conquest, mommy, etc. exists for man to construct himself against. She/we is/are the background (mater) against/on/over which his subject/self heroically strives to make meaning and culture out of mere matter (man = mind, woman = body).
So, enough with the theorizing, although there are volumes more to say.
Is being fat unhealthy? Yes, and no. Yo-yo dieting is unhealthy. Most fat women are yo-yo dieters. Studies in places like Italy, where zaftig women are considered beautiful and no one thinks badly of Mama who cooks a lot and eats
a lot, don’t show any conclusive link between women’s health and weight. Perhaps what we are seeing in other “health” studies is the negative health effect of being looked down on, or dieting, or eating processed food, and not the fat itself.
I’ve been around long enough to know that any study about “health” quickly gets turned into an issue of atheistics and/or morality, especially for women – as it is our “job” to be both physically pleasing to look at, and to be the moral bed-rock of society. Of course, this pedestal of beauty and virtuous/restraint only exists to keep use limited in our movements and fearful of the inevitable fall from grace.
I don’t deny that there is a link between diet and health. But it’s far more complex than size and BMI. My eldest aunt is lean and has Alzheimers, her two-years younger sister has never weighted less than 300lbs and at 77 is still healthy. My mother has never weighed over 110lbs, and has fibro-myalgia.
Whatever the relationship between health and weight, I think it’s still largely being used as a smokescreen for other prejudices. Especially the hatred of women and of the so-called “lower-classes”. Until we can eliminate those biases, I choose not to use the “health” argument as a reason to support negative judgments against anyone. Which, IMHO, is a trap that many “well-meaning” people (even here) still fall into.
“The attitude that it is a matter between patient and doctor ignores the fact that in Australia my taxes and medicare levy pay for others health care.”
Razor, you pay taxes like everyone else and the fact you are doing what is required of you within the law does not give you any rights to allocate where funds do and dont go in the health system. That money is not yours ultimately. You could choose to withhold it of course but then you would go to jail, so its not really yours and it garners you no rights with which to argue where it should go and who will merit it within the health system. None at all. As for the argument of burden, itself: Smokers burden the health system, as do people with aids, as do people with cancer, as do the elderly who are kept alive in a way which would not have been possible 20 years ago. where do you pick and choose in such an argument?
And not all obese people are actually unhealthy, though its true that a lot are. And finally, sorry, privacy issues are not subsumed by your proprietal claims where health dollars are concerned. You dont get to judge people in this way because you are not privy to each persons medical history. It is a self control issue for some, not all. And you would be surprised according to the BMI what constitutes overweight anyway. I am 50 kg but am only just within healty fat range (winter!). We are all a little out of control in terms of our fat composition, within western society. There are skinny people with terribly low muscle mass and high fat composition who would no doubt pass your muster in terms of ‘thin’. “Thin” is often based on a visual assessment and that cannot accurately gage the BMI of a person which is a more accurate predictor of health.
“I was just listening to Luther Ingram sing “If Loving You is Wrong …â€? from a great Wattstax compilation. But .. just trying to think, don’t think I’ve ever heard a woman sing it.”
You can find it on Renee’s greatest hits CD, which should still be readily available. Absolutely, weight does mean different things in different sub-cultures.
“Is being fat unhealthy? Yes, and no. Yo-yo dieting is unhealthy. Most fat women are yo-yo dieters. Studies in places like Italy, where zaftig women are considered beautiful and no one thinks badly of Mama who cooks a lot and eats
a lot, don’t show any conclusive link between women’s health and weight. Perhaps what we are seeing in other “healthâ€? studies is the negative health effect of being looked down on, or dieting, or eating processed food, and not the fat itself.”
Keres, I agree with that. You can be a larger person and be healthy, but many of us who are fat in the West are not. And yes, there are lots of reasons for ill-health (including genetics). It’s interesting to think of the ways fat women have been portrayed over the years (asexual, overly sexual, stupid, lazy). Of course, other women see themselves reflected in other women as well. When I listen to some older women I know speak about their sisters etc, it seems clear to me that women use weight as a tool of power.
“Whatever the relationship between health and weight, I think it’s still largely being used as a smokescreen for other prejudices. Especially the hatred of women and of the so-called “lower-classesâ€?. Until we can eliminate those biases, I choose not to use the “healthâ€? argument as a reason to support negative judgments against anyone. Which, IMHO, is a trap that many “well-meaningâ€? people (even here) still fall into.”
I understand what you are saying. Frankly, I can’t stand sanctimonious middle-class folk looking down at the bad eating habits of the poor. Education is the key.
“Whatever the relationship between health and weight, I think it’s still largely being used as a smokescreen for other prejudices.”
And I think this is very true Keres.
I’m with Adrian – I thought it was Matt Lucas too.
Ouch, Craig Mc.
Matt Lucas is a brave dude. There are times he has been on the TV (on a show with a massive audience) showing off what looks like his very own stretch marks. That is, not painted on stretch marks.
FDB – got a bit of a shock to see you single out the woman from George as fat. It never occurred to me before. I’ve just always thought of her as a fantastic singer (and a stunning-looking woman) and I can’t say I’ve even noticed her weight.
Maybe that’s a point in itself; that she (shit, I’m embarrassed that I can’t remember her name) is actually just a normal woman in the normal weight range, but because we’re used to seeing stick insects she might well “look” fat. I don’t personally think she is and if she was I wouldn’t give a flying you-know-what. She’s a fantastic singer, end of story.
On the general “fat is a feminist issue” stuff, I think that is, in a lot of ways, typical of the arguments we are having in these so-called post-feminist times. We acknowledge that it IS important to still challenge the “only thin is beautiful” paradigm, but by the same token, we also have to temper it with a bit of common sense. Overweight is fine; morbidly obese is anothing thing altogether. Obesity is a major contributor to serious, chronic illness in our society, and it is something we now acknowledge we need to take more seriously.
I’m not concerned about the “role model” aspect of this story. In fact, I think it is good for young women to see other young women who are strong and confident, especially if said young women fall outside the “star” stereotype. What I am concerned about is the need of the interviewer to focus on her weight. The best approach would be to mention in passing that she is a role model for plus-sized young women and leave it at that. The focus of the article should have been on her music, on my opinion.
Doesn’t sell as many newspapers, granted.
Darlene – habits are just that – habits. They can be changed. I’ve been out of primary school for a while now but even thirty years ago they were teaching good nutrition and not much has changed.
Oh and as for a preference on female figures I should say my preference is for fit, rather than skinny.
Casey – I am well aware that until I have some kind of direct control over health policy and spending that I can’t control where health dollars are spent. I can, however, advocate for how it should and shouldn’t be spent, just as all health care special interest groups do. Where the policy ends up picking and choosing is a reflection of the effectiveness of the arguments of the different special interest groups.
I do get to judge people because the vast number of over-weight people are so because of personal choice, not all but over-whlemingly most. Only a very small minority are over weight because of medical conditions that no matter what they did in relation to their lifestyle they would still be over weight.
I am well aware of BMI and the measurement issues surrounding it. I personally have to do 150 – 200 km per week on a bike to keep in my healthy BMI range and eat and drink what I want. And even then I restrict my diet severely compared to what I would really like to eat and drink.
I am well aware of the skinny people wih high body fat proportions. The health problems caused by them are small compared to the obesity epidemics.
Katie Noonan isn’t fat. She’s not a little girl, but she’s not fat. I saw her in person once and she was exquisitely beautiful.
Lynda, every interview they do with Ditto mentions her weight. Blah!!!
“On the general “fat is a feminist issueâ€? stuff, I think that is, in a lot of ways, typical of the arguments we are having in these so-called post-feminist times. We acknowledge that it IS important to still challenge the “only thin is beautifulâ€? paradigm, but by the same token, we also have to temper it with a bit of common sense. Overweight is fine; morbidly obese is anothing thing altogether. Obesity is a major contributor to serious, chronic illness in our society, and it is something we now acknowledge we need to take more seriously.”
Yes, that’s a very common sense view.
“Darlene – habits are just that – habits. They can be changed. I’ve been out of primary school for a while now but even thirty years ago they were teaching good nutrition and not much has changed.
Oh and as for a preference on female figures I should say my preference is for fit, rather than skinny.”
Fair enough, but habits can be difficult to change and take time to change (will you accept that at least?).
That’s interesting about the nutrition classes. We had home economics (making jam, scones, spag bol etc), but I don’t recall good nutrition classes. It was the age of meat and three vegetables.
Casey and Darlene, thanks for your replies (btw, the above was my first post here.)
I come from a northern European background, which means that most of my life I have “gotten away” with eating large quantities of high fat foods because my ancestors had to get through the winters on sausages and cheese. And while I’ll agree that the modern western diet is hard on westerners, you should see what it has does to people from other parts of the world. I lived for many years in New Mexico, where the desert adapted Puebloan peoples have terrible rates of diabetes (one in three) and a huge problem with obesity. I think this white/non-white difference also plays into the “war on fat”. Especially in the US (where I’m from), the equation of fat = self-indulgence, versus thin = “virtue” of self-restraint, totally glosses over the fact that most white people can eat far more fat than most non-white people without gaining anywhere near as much weight. Again, I think that our prejudices are finding justification with the “health” argument rather than the issue of health (or self-restraint) being the real driver.
Darlene, I’m afraid that I have to disagree with your statement about education being key. People are very much pleasure and comfort driven, and the food industry has created consumables (I won’t call that stuff food) that tap into our biology in ways that we have never had to deal with before. As long as we allow industry to create these cheap monstrous food-hybreds no amount of individual knowledge will change our overall consuming patterns.
And as long as the other main product of western culture is stress, people who have fewer and fewer ways of inexpensively de-stressing will continue to use the pleasure of eating to make themselves feel good. More wealthy individuals, with other (more costly) ways of de-stressing and rewarding themselves, will of course continue to sell the idea that they have more self-control, and are therefore superior people.
Anyway. I have to get off my fat butt and take the dog for a walk.
Cheers.
“FDB – got a bit of a shock to see you single out the woman from George as fat.”
That wasn’t so much what I meant to do. More that, as you say, she’s a good enough singer that it simply doesn’t matter what she looks like. To me at least, it’s all about the singing in her case.
In Ditto’s case, it’s all about the ‘tude – her voice is distinctive, but she ain’t gonna win no medals for note-hitting – and this is difficult to separate from her body because she’s chosen to let it all hang out as it were.
How long before someone accuses her of using her fat as a gimmick do you reckon? I hope she’s as emotionally strong as she seems, because I think this will happen if it hasn’t already and might be a tad galling.
Thanks Keres and welcome.
Well, I hope if kids can learn good eating habits when they are young, they will stick to those when they are older. Your point about “de-stressing” is a good one. I think what I was trying to suggest to Razor was that eating can have psychological causes (de-stressing being one, but also low self-esteem, anxiety etc). Yep, it’s cheaper to reach for some choccie bars than buy tons of frocks or stick cocaine up your nose.
“I lived for many years in New Mexico, where the desert adapted Puebloan peoples have terrible rates of diabetes (one in three) and a huge problem with obesity.”
Terrible stats. Thanks for that info. So racist sentiment can be tied up to responses to obesity as well as classist ones.
On the nutrition classes thing: I have a very big pile of posters from the 1950s and 60s salvaged from a primary school chuck-out, and there are lots of food posters, without exception each one is sponsored by the Meat Board or the Dairy Board or the Tinned Pineapple with Imitation Cherries board or whatever. I did Home Ec at school too and it was almost all about how to bake a perfect passionfruit sponge. Actually I wish I’d paid a bit more attention.
Don’t forget people smoked more in the old days and the greater fatness of modern times is probably healthier than putting away a packet a day. Australian food habits aren’t that bad really, compared to what passes for meals in some other places which I won’t mention the names of.
(Sorry, a little bit off-topic…)
Darlene, I think it’s kind of cool and new and interesting, the thread-moderating style you seem to have adopted (if I’m reading rightly) where you try and engage with all the comments as they appear. Creates an interesting kind of energy, though I imagine it’s a lot more work… anyway, it’s pretty great. Rock on!
Even though you could significantly reduce your likelihood of hospitalisation by using a treadmill. Bludger.
Ditto must still be pretty fit though, to be able to perform like she does.
Don’t worry Anthony – both times I’ve needed hospitalisation due to being hit by cars I’ve used my Private health cover.
Which is still massively subsidised Razor, egads! You’re a commie!
Darlene – of course I accept that habits take time and effort to change.
The good old food groups and food pyramid that I remember isn’t that far off what they recommend today.
It is interesting the comment about the diabetes problem in Mexico – sounds very simlar to the problems for Aboriginals. Obviously their physiology is slightly different to Europeans and their systems don’t cope with high sugar/high GI carb diets. A mix of education and a market based solution to enable them to access appropriate food types is required – but only if they want that.
Under the same system there is no punishment for being depressed.
PBS subsidised anti-depressants cost the taxpayer plenty.
This is depressing.
Razor, New Mexico is a state in the US, distinguished from old Mexico, which is a country in North America. I do not know what the health stats for Mexico are.
As for what the native people of the US southwest “want”, that’s a hard thing to gage when many of them are still living in “third-world” conditions and therefore have very limited choices – much like colonized people the world over (including here).
There’s a term called “moral hazard” that seems very relevant to your arguments. In broad terms, it states that when people can shift the burden of loss to someone else, they are more likely to engage in unsafe practices. In terms of health coverage, whether private or public, it means that people who have health coverage may tend to take more risks with their health than people without health coverage. This is as true on the “neglect” side as the “high-risk behavior” side. I.e. people who can shift some of the burden for ill-health will be more likely to neglect their health, and/or engage in activities that have a high risk of accidental injury (i.e. riding a bike on the highway). Interestingly, men are much, much, more likely to do the latter than women, and I would argue that it is the association with men that makes such activities more acceptable to society, although no less costly. Oh, and men are more likely to neglect their health as well, but we’ll keep focusing on fat women.
Keres seems to be using a bit of that palaeo-nutrition ideology which, I think, is thoroughly dodgy. Pueblo Indians and Aborigines aren’t getting diabetes because they aren’t “adapted” to modern diets, but because they live in the country, are poor, and eat shit. They would be fine if they had a decent income and fresh fruit, vegetables and fish could actually get to their towns.
Similarly Keres argument about Northern Europeans “adapting” to their particular diets is, I suspect, shrouded in a complete absence of evidence. The simple fact is that you get fat or not according to how much you eat (energy in) and how much you exercise (energy out). Which is why it is a self-control issue, with much of that self-control learnt in childhood and destroyed by modern lifestyles. We have a very simple way to see that in our own society – go back and look at the 80s music videos people like to post up here every now and then and notice how skinny everyone is. Countdown is a particularly beautiful example of this. You see footage of bands walking down the street and everyone around them is thin. Everyone. There is a reason for that, and it ain’t palaeo-nutrition.
As a fit 30-something kickboxing instructor I have found it alarming how difficult it is to stay thin in Australia, and particularly how in the last 5 years it has become harder. Try getting a tub of yoghurt in the supermarket which doesn’t have at least 5 teaspoons of sugar in it even though it’s “low fat”; try eating a meal in a restaurant which isn’t priced and sized for 2. Simple, clean food like grilled fish is impossible to find, and is always overpriced relative to the dirty stuff. And industry’s solution to being creative with prepared foods is simple: sugar.
Keres comments about thinness bias being a product of dualisms are also a little flawed, since at times in our past very patriarchal societies have judged fatness to be beautiful, not ugly. It also ignores that fat men are also considered to take up “too much room” and to be the victim of quite harsh bullying and insults.
It’s also been pretty much established by now that being overweight is bad for women as well as men. Claims to the contrary have to be based on very selective use of the literature. Given the rate at which people are getting fat (remember our life expectancy is expected to start declining soon), this is a social issue of considerable importance, and a lot of “anti-fat” feminists are chucking up a smoke-screen of “prejudice”, even though we know that given current social relations, it is women who will have the greatest power to reverse the problem. Not a good situation, in my view.
keres – I’m well aware of the geography and I missed typing in New. That said, I think my comments on the indigenous diet/health problems of the desert adapted Puebloan peoples and the Aboriginals, still applies.
As for the “moral hazzard” issue – you are absolutely right – people are able to pass the cost risk off to others through being obese but having a publicly funded health system.
In my direct experience riding a bike on suburban streets is more dangerous than on the highway. I’ve had a car door opened on my group which took out eight of us and a car turn across me which I hit at about 40 kmh – both on suburban streets, not on the highway (and if I didn’t have a bike helmet in both cases I doubt I’d be typing here today.) (And what the Orthopods can do with stainless steel, screws and shattered bones is amazing.) However, the long-term cost-benefit of keeping fit on a bike far outweighs the occaisonal discomfort of broken bones, which I much prefer over torn ligaments and tendons.
And you’ll be pleased to know I regularly get absolutely smashed by the chicks who ride in my group (and so they damn well should dragging 30kg less than me up the hills.)
SG – I will admit to not knowing much about the claims of different palaeo-nutrition theories and if they are scientifically wrong then that is good enough for me. That said, I note that BMI measures are differnet across racial lines.
And I agree completely with trying to eat healthy – I love Italian, but getting a meal that I call a reasonable size often requires ordering entree size and then leaving some.
“I understand what you are saying. Frankly, I can’t stand sanctimonious middle-class folk looking down at the bad eating habits of the poor. Education is the key.”
Had to laugh at this Darlene. Isn’t it middle-class sanctimony to refer to these habits as ‘bad’ and requiring remedy through ‘education’?
BBB
I have the slowest metabolism in history, and can put on fat with one normal meal per day with exercise. If “my” physiology could be distributed differently in different ethnic populations, and I see no reason why it couldn’t, then there’s nothing necessarily pseudoscientific about a genetic basis for obesity rates. Assuming the data has been gathered of course.
I don’t know about that. I’d say it’s precisely in a place like Italy, where food (and mealtimes) take on enormous symbolic significance, that you find eating disorders (such as anorexia) are rife.
The simple fact is that you get fat or not according to how much you eat (energy in) and how much you exercise (energy out).
Well yes, but that simple fact has some not-so-simple variants at play, such as physical build, metabolic rate, etc.
Which is why it is a self-control issue, with much of that self-control learnt in childhood and destroyed by modern lifestyles.
I think talking about ’self-control’ in the context of the huge food industries we’re surrounded by in this society is misleading. By food industries, I mean both fast food and the kinds of convenience, processed foods which are readily, cheaply available in supermarkets. Combine these with long working hours, ‘flexible’ working hours, dual-working parents, sedentary work (especially at computers!), long journeys to work (often by car), lack of locally-based lifestyles (far less walking) etc and it becomes much more than a matter of self-control as to why so many of us have to struggle to put more energy out than energy in.
FDB – that depends on how your early childhood affected your “slowest” metabolism. I don’t know that the role of genetics in this is well understood. Whatever the genetic component of your metabolic rate, the chances are that it is much less influential than how much soft drink and maccas you guzzled in your teens.
Razor – I never thought about how screwed up our restaurants are in Australia until I moved to Japan. Here you can get fish and chips, for example, for $8 at even the trendiest pubs. But the fish is always grilled, contains half the flesh of a big Ozzie fillet, and you get half as many chips – frequently in big potato-y chunks and often freshly cooked. By comparison in a trendy pub in Oz you get a vast paddock of deep-fried junk for $15. The same applies to all the other food you get here – less of it, generally, at a lower price. It gives people more opportunity to mix and match, and to restrict their food intake. Australia could learn a lot from the way Japanese society is geared to make you thin.
So, driving up the cost of my premiums then.
(and will step aside from the snark to say that bike related hospitalisation with related metal bits is no fun at all )
“am well aware that until I have some kind of direct control over health policy and spending that I can’t control where health dollars are spent. I can, however, advocate for how it should and shouldn’t be spent, just as all health care special interest groups do. Where the policy ends up picking and choosing is a reflection of the effectiveness of the arguments of the different special interest groups.”
Razor, I dont understand then. How exactly would play it out if you had that direct control? If you are successful in your advocacy against the fat people of Australia, what would happen? If obese people presented with heart attacks, needed dialysis, if they needed tablets to control blood pressure, if they needed C-pap machines for sleep apnoea and if they could not afford it – you would see them turned away on basis of weight? And how would you determine it was the fat that was causing all this stuff (just as likey genetics in heart issues)? And how would you judge it was because of personal choice, are you considering a psych degree with which to make your decisions?
Oh comeon. I think if you really play out that judgement that fat people dont deserve health care because they (so you think) can easily control their food intake then your judgement starts to look highly partial, and discriminatory.
Razor, its just a gripe about fat people. You think they have no self control. But your ruminations that they should not get publicly funded health care because of this weakness has no basis in reality. It would take a very cruel human being to withhold medical care from a person because they made the wrong food choices. The decision would be based on a need to subjectively punish them. I suspect you wouldnt be up to that really…
SG, I haven’t heard the term “palaeo-nutrition ideology” before, but I’m familiar with the disputes around the notion of “the Thrifty Gene” hypothesis. There have been recent studies refuting the notion that some people evolved to live on less than others, but in my experience the clusters of certain metabolic diseases in certain peoples isn’t entirely explained by slight dietary differences between them their western neighbors. There are biological differences between racial groups that affect health. Which we are only starting to understand – mostly because western medicine has until only a few years ago exclusively used white men as study subjects. One only has to look at the rates of lactose intolerance in Europeans and Asians to see that evolving to eat certain foods has been one of the main drivers in human adaptive radiation (the other big one being sun-exposure).
Razor, I too have broken a few bones in the pursuit of exercise. But I think my argument still holds in that we are particularly rabid about so-called individual responsibility when the “violations” come from marginalized people. Serious auto “accidents” are mostly caused by young men engaged in high-risk behavior. My own ill-health stems from the act of one such young man who plowed into the back of my car, forever damaging my back and neck. His action created a burden on myself, my loved ones, and the whole of society that insurance will never put right. But, despite the current rage of “individual responsibility”, there are few people railing against what is generally accepted as “boys will be boys” behavior. Oh sure, we Tsk-tsk a fair bit, but there is nowhere near the level of vitriol aimed at young mainstream men (and the huge costs they impose on society – read “Men are not Cost Effective” if you want more details) that we reserve for people from marginalized groups.
That is the crux of my arguments, not that weight does not matter, but that we can’t really have a discussion about weight until we have a discussion about how perceived differences and prejudices distort such a discussion. Which in any real sense, we have yet to have.
And now, having walked the dog, followed by too much time sitting at the computer, it’s time to cook dinner.
I’d like to know the name of the journalist responsible for that appalling load of fawning crap in The Age article. Has he/she got shares in Beth Ditto’s band or something? It was bad enough extolling the virtues of eating doughnuts (as if Ditto spends all her time stuffing herself with junk food – oh honestly, are all of us readers really that stupid?) but the whole tone of the article is the thing that really got me. Who is this woman? Oh yes, we heard about her life, with mode switched to legend – but nothing real about her. What is the band music like? Why is it cutting edge? Has she got any talent? About the best description I got out of that article for music was ‘bluesy’ and just about nothing else. The whole article sounded like a no-holds-barred sycophantic plug for Beth Ditto and bugger any notions of objectivity or constructive criticism. If this is what goes for criticism of the rock scene these days I shudder at its future. Mind you I don’t read much in the way of rock music reviews so maybe it has always been like that.
Also what I want to know is, why do we have to waste any time reading about someone’s thoroughly faked-up orgasm at the sight of a few curves? If somebody wants to be fat, well that’s fine but there’s no need to make a song and dance about it. In fact the average reader would be pardoned for thinking that a different stand-out look is about the only thing that’s cutting edge about Beth Ditto, which would be quite a shame if it wasn’t.
suz – your whole second paragraph is what I meant for people to think when I said “modern lifestyles”.
keres – arguments about adaptation use a lot of Indigenous and poor rural groups as their examples. You have to rule out all the social constraints on their ability to choose good food before you allow them. If we plonked a bunch of rugby league players out in an Aboriginal community for 30 years they’d get diabetes pretty damn quickly, and any superior genetic adaptation they had would be inadequate to the task of handling a diet of sugar and shit. These dietary differences are not, to use your words, “slight”. They are huge. The difference between having 0 fruit in your diet and 2 pieces a day is not “slight”, nor is the difference between “only sugar and fat” and the food pyramid.
I think we (Western society) are all adults, and we can have a discussion about weight without being hamstrung by the perceived differences and prejudices. It is too important to delay, and a lot of the suggested alternatives – making fat a feminist issue, for example – will just make us all fatter. Especially since at the moment it is women who make most decisions about consumer spending, and women who have most responsibility for raising children. Those women need to be supported in their decision to feed their daughters less than their sons, and to make their children ride a bike to school, rather than feeling the right thing to do is to feed different sized males and females equally, and drive their kids everywhere because making them fat is okay.
‘Studies in places like Italy, where zaftig women are considered beautiful and no one thinks badly of Mama who cooks a lot and eats
a lot, don’t show any conclusive link between women’s health and weight.’
Keres, I hate to burst your bubble but there are beaches in Italy where women who don’t measure up to the required 36, 26, 36 or thereabouts statistics are not allowed to use the beach. I kid you not. They’re out there with tape measures too. No all societies have their sexist side.
“where zaftig women are considered beautiful and no one thinks badly of Mama who cooks a lot and eats
a lot”
Yes Megan I agree. The fat mamas are dying off and the new mamas are pretty slim these days. Italy is such an obsessed culture when it comes to food and weight. I think Happy Revolutionary is right.
“zaftig” – of german origin?, meaning juice or juicy. heh. some things dont change throughout the centuries ….honey, sweety, sugar, pumpkin…
Casey – it is already being done – obese people denied surgery and transplant patients, in particular for lung (smokers) and livers ((alcoholics), being denied the opportunity in place of more deserving donors. At the same time the waiting list system, which is the only means of rationing free public health care, does it all the time by prioritising elective surgery.
With respect Razor, a lot of that has to do with health risks involved in putting obese people through surgery or rejection of the organ in the case of alcoholics etc. But its not because of decision to deny people operations on the basis of wrong food choices.I have seen many many obese people get life saving surgery so these assertions do not not ring true for me. Nor were these people denied drugs, or any services on basis of incorrect food choices. What you are advocating however, would be based on that. Now would you seriously see this society usher in a health system which would punish people and deny them these life saving services? Would you really?
Casey, I wasn’t talking about generally denying people life saving treatment.
Well thats a good thing Razor.
“Under the partially socialised health system there are no punishments for being fat. ”
Returning to your original comment, you seem to be talking about punishing people for being fat, ie punishing them for their moral weaknesses by penalising them in some way. What way you would do this remains a nebulous proposition from what I can see. This is a deeply subjective position you are coming from. Not all people think obesity is a flaw, or a personal failure which needs to be punished by the health system. We are all of us with some sort of issue, which will at sometime impact on the health system. How much choice we have in causing that issue is not, for the most part, currently something which will impact on our ability to access services. And, unless we are to have people imposing their own subjective moral standards in the receipt of healthcare, it is the way it should remain.
I believe that we have to allocate health care according to need, not desert. You start tampering with this principle and you may as well junk the whole notion of social justice and social services. I don’t think denying people publicly-funded health treatment would have much of a deterrent effect anyway. Short term desires have far greater pulling power than risks that are decades away. Some hardcore rational choice social scientists have trouble comprehending this basic psychological fact. You don’t consult a risk analyst before you buy a donut. You already know you [i]shouldn’t[/i] have it. America has a far more user pays system than does Australia, and they have an even greater rate of obesity.
I agree that concepts of self-control and personal responsibility have some ability to dissuade obesity. But the cause of the obesity problem lies in the rise of consumerism and the mass media, which have stimulated our desires, and enabled us to satisfy them 24/7. The dominant culture is Always Have More – and now we are paying the price.
BTW, that’s a great post Darlene. Anti-fat sadism is wrong because sadism is wrong. But this doesn’t mean we should glorify or reclaim fatness. Sound evidence shows that obesity is associated with greatly increased health risks. We should be very concerned about the rising rate of obesity, because in years to come it will test the financial limits of socialised medicine. People like Razor may just get sick of paying and lobby for a free market alternative. In this context, living and promoting a healthy lifestyle is a political tactic – and one that may be vital for the future of social democratic health care.
No, it’s about conduct that unnecessarily incurs healthcare costs. The morality of it is neither here nor there. I doubt Razor wants to ‘punish’ anyone for eating too much. I think he is just saying that a partially socialised health systems removes some of the disincentive to keep yourself healthy; if someone does make the decision to over-eat (or whatever), they themselves should fully bear the associated costs. Of course, this position cannot be absolute because ‘being fat’ (or whatever) is not always and everywhere a deliberate choice.
BBB
Eat less, move more.
“Fat” is a feminist issue in so far as it is pertinent to the rejection of women in certain spheres because they don’t live up to the sexualised ideal. In certain areas of endeavour, especially where success entails presence in the public eye (including singing, performing, newsreading etc) women whose appearance does not accord with the socially constructed “ideal” will be disadvantaged. This does not apply to the same extent to men, who are more likely to be assessed by their performance rather than by how they look in a miniskirt.
In this sense, disadvantage attaching to a woman who is not considered alluring because of her excess weight, is a feminist issue – because the disadvantage is a sexualised phenomenon.
Having said that, and as a feminist (and proud of it) myself, I am concerned by the tendency by some feminists to take the attack on the mainstream perception too far and see fat as something commendable. It is all well and good for a woman to love her body and to have self-confidence that stems from that, but it is not ok for women to think that something unhealthy is good. It is a medical fact that excess weight causes or increases the incidence of a whole host of deadly diseases and conditions. It is one thing to reject the sexualised perception of women, it is another to say that they should not strive to improve their weight when it is excessive. Not so they can look good, but so they can feel good, be healthier and live longer (which should be a feminist goal also).
An interesting series of comments. One thing is who decides what is the best body shape?
Via tigtog, there is a relevant post on Pandagon regarding the criticism of Britney Spears’ shambolic VMA performance. That Britney is a train wreck there is no doubt. But the carping about her body shape is misogynistic. Personally I don’t think Britney is and never been “sexy” but nothing wrong with her bod.
Razor correctly points out the issues with BMIs. The trouble is that what fashion decrees as “fat” could easily fall into a healthy weight range and pose no medical issues. And I do agree with Unsilenced’s points regarding how the issue of being “fat’ is sometime coopted as being commendable.
As a bloke, I have struggled with my weight the past few years and understand there are health issues ahead if I don’t change a few things. But that doesn’t mean a skeletal physique. Unfortunately we men have it better in that a blocky though healthy figure can be seen as more than fine.
I was trying to segue into a mention of Bon’s ode to a Willendorfian lass from Tassy but if you know me just take it for given.
It would involve scrutinising lifestyle choices to determine desert. How can this escape morality? Driving a car drastically increases your risk of various treatments, but is this a legitimate risk? Miners know the dangers of their work and still choose to reap the financial benefits – should their treatment costs be socialised? On what basis do you distinguish legitimate risk behaviours from illegitimate ones? I can’t how you can do this without invoking morality.
Maybe we just have different ideas about the bounds of the moral sphere. I have no general view on whether risky conduct is right or wrong. Sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s bad. But as a general comment: when healthcare is ‘free’ (not really) I imagine people are more willing to take risks. When people have to pay for all their own healthcare costs then I suppose they will weigh up the pros and potential cons of this or that action and conduct themselves accordingly.
Absolutely not.
BBB
BBB, we just have different moral beliefs about social responsibility.
Do you believe that the government should provide *no* money to anybody? If you think this, you would be condemning many poor people to horrible deaths that a small amount of taxation could have prevented. If not, how do you decide when a particular conditions was brought about by deliberate risk taking? Sounds like you’d need to mount an impossible examination into the person’s life and history. How do you deal with partial causation? What about common risks, like car driving?
I also think you are wrong on an empirical point. I doubt the added financial risk would a noticeable impact on behaviour. The risks are already so great and horrible that you are well past the point of diminishing returns in terms of a deterrent effect. We already know we shouldn’t have the donut, but we have it anyway.
People are lousy at comparing concrete short-term satisfactions with marginal changes in long-term risks.
What, for healthcare? That might be OK, so long as you weren’t taxing low-income earners so much that they couldn’t afford adequate health insurance. And of course you need to look after the unemployed, etc. But in principle there is nothing wrong with a wholly privatised health system that doesn’t rely on public funds.
Not sure how you’d track these things, but corporate insurers would quickly figure it out. Who knows, the process might yield some interesting information about the health risks of certain behaviours, like eating lots of doughnuts and having a high BMI.
Cheers
BBB
Actually, presumably the costs of figuring out which patient has made what choice outweigh the benefits to the insurer of knowing. I can’t recall ever being asked what I eat when getting hospital treatment or applying for health insurance.
BBB
“Sorry, but we can’t save your life. Provision #347 390.23A stipulates we only cover for single heart bypasses and not double if you exceed 257 risk points in the 6 months prior to the condition. After recalculating, you appear to have 258…”
Apart from the inefficiency, I think the arbitrariness of your system would make for a capricious and insecure society. The stark differences in health outcomes between the rich and the poor would create tides of division and resentment. When it comes to matters of life and death, immense pain or comfort, nothing quite cuts it like certainty and universality.
Yeah well it just comes down to a political difference. A cheap measure like BMI or some such would result in a large number of false positives – people who are penalised even when their diet is fine for them. But I don’t think this would matter to hard libertarians.
On point of fact, however, Razor is wrong to say there are currently “no” disincentives for unhealthiness (erm social stigma, death perhaps?). And I think any increase in “disincentive effect” would be miniscule compared to what’s already there. So don’t expect libertarianism to make anyone less fat. Actually, I suspect it would make people more fat, as it would give us greater ability to immediately satisfy our desires. As our spontaneous decisions give disproportionate weight to the short term, greater capacity for individual “choiceâ€? would lead to more long-term health problems resulting from temporally pleasant behaviour.
Sorry if I’m too tired to make sense.
“I did Home Ec at school too and it was almost all about how to bake a perfect passionfruit sponge. Actually I wish I’d paid a bit more attention.”
Mmmm, you’re making me hungry, Laura.
“Darlene, I think it’s kind of cool and new and interesting, the thread-moderating style you seem to have adopted (if I’m reading rightly) where you try and engage with all the comments as they appear. Creates an interesting kind of energy, though I imagine it’s a lot more work… anyway, it’s pretty great. Rock on!”
Thanks, but I can only do it when I can (of course). I’d keep rockin’ on but I think my hip has gone. : )
“The good old food groups and food pyramid that I remember isn’t that far off what they recommend today.�
That’s true and not true, Razor. There are a million diets out there waiting to suck in those who are feeling bad about themselves. It was interesting to read recently that quite a few of the contestants of The Biggest Loser have regained the weight.
“Under the same system there is no punishment for being depressed.
PBS subsidised anti-depressants cost the taxpayer plenty.
This is depressing.�
Yes, Katz, millions are being spent on the so-called depression epidemic. I was at the doctors the other day and sitting in the chair next to me was a rep for one of the drug companies. There she was being extra friendly to the staff, while carrying her little blue bag filled with Lexapro (and her information sheets). Hmmmmmm.
“Had to laugh at this Darlene. Isn’t it middle-class sanctimony to refer to these habits as ‘bad’ and requiring remedy through ‘education’?�
Fair enough, but I struggle from this issue; I hope I am not sanctimonious and I am not from a middle-class background. Suggesting that education is a good thing isn’t the same thing as preaching at people from an ivory tower.
Yes, Megan, the article was twaddle. I certainly didn’t feel like I knew much more about Ms Ditto or her band after reading it.
“BTW, that’s a great post Darlene. Anti-fat sadism is wrong because sadism is wrong. But this doesn’t mean we should glorify or reclaim fatness. Sound evidence shows that obesity is associated with greatly increased health risks. We should be very concerned about the rising rate of obesity, because in years to come it will test the financial limits of socialised medicine. People like Razor may just get sick of paying and lobby for a free market alternative. In this context, living and promoting a healthy lifestyle is a political tactic – and one that may be vital for the future of social democratic health care.�
Thanks, David. Absolutely, there’s a middle ground here. Nobody should be discriminated against or denied medical services, but we’ve got to get real about it. It would be a sad day indeed if we depended on the market for our medical care. The socialised system isn’t great, but it’s better than the alternative. See Sicko for further information.
“Eat less, move more.”
Good advice, amph.
Unsilenced, I think being fat is a feminist issue and fat is a feminist issue. The latter for the reasons you’ve outlined and the former because I don’t think it’s easy being a strong woman when you feel weak and unhealthy.
“Having said that, and as a feminist (and proud of it) myself, I am concerned by the tendency by some feminists to take the attack on the mainstream perception too far and see fat as something commendable. It is all well and good for a woman to love her body and to have self-confidence that stems from that, but it is not ok for women to think that something unhealthy is good. It is a medical fact that excess weight causes or increases the incidence of a whole host of deadly diseases and conditions. It is one thing to reject the sexualised perception of women, it is another to say that they should not strive to improve their weight when it is excessive. Not so they can look good, but so they can feel good, be healthier and live longer (which should be a feminist goal also).”
Absolutely. It struck me as odd that when the issue of Ditto posing nude on the cover on NME came up on blogs like Feministing there was a real kneejerk reaction from some of the women commenting.
“An interesting series of comments. One thing is who decides what is the best body shape?”
The medical profession, I guess.
Keres:
and:
Plus your entire 6:01 comment:
WORD!!
SG:
I agree with you about the lack of availability of proper food in some remote indigenous communities. But I can’t agree with
Did you mean “fat acceptance” feminists? Also, whoa on that “women will have the greatest power to reverse the problem.” What you are saying is, “women bear most of the responsibility because they are the nurturers, the cooks and the shoppers and also handy blame receptacles”. F**k that.
Re. the “modern lifestyles” argument: As a working mum, I refuse to take the role as the villain of the piece. I, and all my working friends – some of them much loftier than me – buy fresh food, cook properly and our families eat around a table. In our house we tag-team this job so that each spouse works later some nights and earlier on others. People who don’t cook properly maybe just don’t like to cook?
Razor:
I’ll steer better next time.;-)
Healthy women will always have a higher fat ratio than men because they are the ones who need to survive prolonged scarcity coz if they didn’t, their kids don’t and bye-bye clan/tribe/species.
Males are supremely unnecessary once they’ve performed their minimal function as they contribute almost nothing to the food supply, unless slowly cooked.
In survival/evolutionary terms fat is easily acquired and easily reabsorbed to keep the individual, and her offspring, alive until the next rains.
It’s only in the last 150 odd yrs that even the white West was assured of a continual (non seasonal)food supply – hence carnivale at (apparently) counter intuitive times of the (Northern) year.
The fact that because we can, we do overeat is just a result of modern society.
The edible stuff (I wouldn’t call the vast majority of it ‘food’) available in supamarts is a huge problem to societies so divorced from the forces that formed us.
It’s been quipped that “revolution is only three missed meals away” yet a couple of days without food (apart from water)is not that big a deal, it’s mainly habit. recognise . (and
“Males are supremely unnecessary once they’ve performed their minimal function as they contribute almost nothing to the food supply, unless slowly cooked.”
Tee hee, love it.
“The edible stuff (I wouldn’t call the vast majority of it ‘food’) available in supamarts is a huge problem to societies so divorced from the forces that formed us.”
It’s so true. How we get re-acquainted with those in the face of all that “food” is an interesting question.
They’re normal people then. 95% of all people who lose weight on diets regain the weight within 5 years. People who do not regain the weight within 5 years are literally freaks. There’s more about natural weight ranges in this article by Gina Kolata, and it’s stuff that scientists have known for decades but the diet industry’s myths have overwhelmed the facts:
Health problems are caused by eating crap and being sedentary, not by fat per se: as has already been noted, plenty of thin people who eat crap and live sedentary lifestyles are more unhealthy than fat people who are active and eat healthy food. Fat active people have half the mortality rate of thin sedentary people, and the same mortality rate as thin active people. There is a very real difference between “obesity” and “morbid obesity” which keeps on getting glossed over in these discussions – only 3% of people are morbidly obese, the rest of the fat people are just fat, and are no more likely to be unhealthy than anyone else. We need to encourage people to be healthy, not to be thin, because the two are not synonomous: we need Health At Every Size.
Fun facts:
* fat people are more likely to survive cardiac events than thin people[study], and are no more likely to suffer from them either, despite “common knowledge”.
* Identical twins have nearly identical body mass indexes whether they are reared together or apart, and adopted children have body mass indexes that correlate closely to their biological parents and not to their adoptive families. Kolata again:
*BMI is hogwash. 90% of elite rugby/Aussie rules/basketball players are clinically overweight/obese if you go by the BMI. Apart from a few rugby front-rowers, most of these athletes have far lower body fat than most people, and are certainly all far more healthy. BMI simply doesn’t adequately take muscularity into account, and the diet industry certainly isn’t interested in promoting the various alternative body fat measurements that exist, and their marketing budget is bigger than Health At Every Size advocates. Indeed, the fat panic mob managed to have the BMI classes of “overweight” and “obese” changed in 1998: before 1998 the threshold for overweight was a BMI orf 27, now it’s 25. The threshold for “obese” used to be 32, now it’s 30. Tens of millions of people went to bed one night normal and woke up the next day overweight, or were overweight and woke up obese, just with the stroke of a pen which had no scientific data behind it.
We need to encourage physical activity without the fat shaming, because fat is not the villain it’s made out to be.
I suppose a lot hangs on what we treat as a serious dieting attempt. But we don’t know how much more they’d weigh if it wasn’t for the diet (people tend to get heavier as they age). I tend to go in cycles. Periods of weight loss balance out other times when I put it on. When I lose the down part of the cycle, I just keep putting it on.
Ok so if you are uber-muscular you need other measures. But it’s not too bad for most people.
Where does this come from? Being overweight isn’t especially bad, but problems start at obesity, not just morbid obesity.
The question of whether fatness itself causes death isn’t really the issue. The issue is that fatness tends to come from a lifestyle that causes health problem, and thus it’s not something to be championed.
“They’re normal people then. 95% of all people who lose weight on diets regain the weight within 5 years. People who do not regain the weight within 5 years are literally freaks. There’s more about natural weight ranges in this article by Gina Kolata, and it’s stuff that scientists have known for decades but the diet industry’s myths have overwhelmed the facts”
Absolutely, but think of how many people tried to emulate the show and paid for it. It’s the ultimate in yo-yo. There’s no way doing all that exercise is sustainable in the real world.
“We need to encourage physical activity without the fat shaming, because fat is not the villain it’s made out to be.”
Totally.
An interesting article pointing out that the links between weight-loss and exercise aren’t exactly as simple as they seem.
If you try and ‘diet’ you are doomed to failure – it is all about lifestyle choices. You Lefties here are all over “sustainability” – you need to create a sustainable lifestyle.
I call it the Changi Principle – no fat bastards came out of Changi – eat less and exercise more.
Anything called the Changi Principle must represent the very opposite of sustainability.
Thanks for that link, Jobby. Interesting stuff.
“If you try and ‘diet’ you are doomed to failure – it is all about lifestyle choices.”
That’s absolutely true.
“You Lefties here are all over “sustainabilityâ€? – you need to create a sustainable lifestyle.
I call it the Changi Principle – no fat bastards came out of Changi – eat less and exercise more.”
Thanks, errr, luvvie.
Razor, my father in law was in Changi, and also on the Burma Railway.
Have you any idea how many of the men who “ate less and exercised more” at Changi and in Burma died purely from malnutrition rather than any other direct brutality? And how many of the rest of them who became oh so thin but survived suffered from that period of being underweight for the rest of their lives?
My FIL suffered a lifetime of digestive malfunction through having been forced down to a weight of under five stone for those years. His gums never recovered, leading to dental problems. His bone density was affected as well.
Not just the opposite of sustainability, the opposite of health entirely.
Laura – you obviously don’t connect with the ANZAC style of humour.
My sustainable lifestyle includes driving a 5.7 litre V8 so I can get from A to B quicker in order to spend more time on the bike.
“Can you name the truck with four wheel drive,
smells like a steak and seats thirty-five..
Canyonero! Canyonero!
Well, it goes real slow with the hammer down,
It’s the country-fried truck endorsed by a clown!
Canyonero! (Yah!) Canyonero!
[Krusty:] Hey Hey
The Federal Highway comission has ruled the
Canyonero unsafe for highway or city driving.
Canyonero!
12 yards long, 2 lanes wide,
65 tons of American Pride!
Canyonero! Canyonero!
Top of the line in utility sports,
Unexplained fires are a matter for the courts!
Canyonero! Canyonero! (Yah!)
She blinds everybody with her super high beams,
She’s a squirrel crushing, deer smacking, driving machine!
Canyonero!-oh woah, Canyonero! (Yah!)
Drive Canyonero!
Woah Canyonero!
Woah!”
Razor wrote:
And stole it from the faux-lifestyle show on SBS called Life Support. If you’re going to nick stuff, at least be funny about it.
tigtog – I did 10 years in the Australian Army and I had relatives in Changi and on the Burma Railway and fighting in New Guinea. I’ve cried in the Changi Chapel, read Weary Dunlop’s War Diaries.
I also know what the Aussie Diggers’ sense of humour is like.
Get off your high horse.
David – apart from their News and the Tour I can’t say I watch or would be aware of any of the shows on SBS, apart from “The Eagle”, which I have heard is excellent but haven’t caught yet.
I interpreted the verb “to diet” as synonymous with making sustainable lifestyle choices in terms of food intake when starting from a context of bad choices. I agree a lot of people go on stupid faddish “diets” that they will never stick too. These are expressions of cathartic self-denial rather than well-managed diets. Having said that, fast weight loss, especially when medically managed, can work for some people, provided you don’t do stupid things. Two brothers-in-law of mine have had great success with medically supervised diets a couple of years ago. They went from obese to healthy weight range and have held it.
Although I’ve never been obese, I know it’s easier for me to lose weight quickly than slowly. You just need one snap change and then you can gradually go back to close to your old eating habits (provided you weren’t gaining weight).
Razor, I can accept that you meant your remark as laconic ratbaggery, but I don’t apologise for taking offense initially.
“Two brothers-in-law of mine have had great success with medically supervised diets a couple of years ago. They went from obese to healthy weight range and have held it.”
That’s good news.
Perhaps for most folk slow is the go. As I’ve suggested, psychological factors can play a large part when it comes to weight issues. Such factors can take a long time to change or fix.
To be honest, Darlene, I’m not sure how fast they lost their weight. But it was a radical change in diet and they did get *hungry*.
For me I either pursue something with zealous all-consuming intensity or not at all
. I’d get frustrated with slow progress. The diet itself would have to replace food as the object of cathartic release. But I know it’s would only be temporary. Some people can’t do that.
I went on a diet once: whenever I was hungry between meals, instead of snacking I just drank water to get the feeling of a full stomach. Worked a treat, although I needed to go to the bathroom about 10 times a day.
BBB
“Laura – you obviously don’t connect with the ANZAC style of humour.”
Yeah, obviously, my sense of humour would totally fail the Australian Values test.
Yeah, same BBB. After a while you just kick your constant desire for food. It’s psychological retraining.
A horse of a different colour but a lot further to fall.
Being ex-army, what is the state of your liver, Razor? I demand full liver function & neurological tests so I can moan about how I am going to pay for your wernicke-korsakoffs/ cirrhosis etc etc. (As Patrick G pointed out via subsidization of your private health care costs). Not to mention the knee replacement surgery from all of that selfish over-exercising.
You’ve conveniently ignored the arguments, all backed up by scientific research, that it isn’t simply a matter of calories in minus calories out.
I think this is entirely wrong:
The feminist issue here is the rejection of women in certain spheres because they don’t live up to the sexualised ideal. Fat just happens to be related to the current ideal. You don’t change the problem by pretending fatness is okay. You change the problem by making rejection of women who don’t live up to the sexualised ideal wrong. In this context fat is a feminist furphy, not a feminist issue.
Helen takes me to task for suggesting that under the current social conditions women have greater power to influence the issue of fatness than men. She is of course right that such a position turns women into handy blame receptacles, but there is no getting around the problem. Women currently have greater responsibility for household purchasing decisions, major and minor, for schooling decisions, and for child-rearing decisions. They also make the majority of decisions about their children’s sporting involvement. This situation is changing very slowly. On the other hand, Western societies’ obesity epidemic is growing very quickly. Since the advent of maccas in 1984, women’s responsibility for household arrangements hasn’t changed a great deal; but the proportion of obese people has roughly doubled. Long before child-caring arrangements are shared equally, our average life expectancy will begin to decline for the first time in several hundred years due entirely to obesity. A whole generation of rural children are growing up fat right now. Our international sporting competitiveness will decline – this is a disaster, people!
So in the short term, to reverse an epidemic, we need to make sure that the people with the greatest power to reverse the problem are supported in those decisions which will reverse the problem. Just like we did in the 80s with HIV, by targeting a group who could prevent the problem and making sure they understood the message. And the message should be – being fat is bad. Don’t be fat and most of all don’t make your children fat (with appropriate messages explaining how, of course).
(though actually I think the most important thing is to make structural changes which make getting fat expensive. e.g. by ending sugar subsidies, introducing a carbon and methane tax, and lowering the speed limit to 50km/hr).
My mum is of Italian background. When she was growing up fat women were viewed as beautiful, along with their white skin. It was because fat women had money. Money with which to eat. Money with which to stay home and not work in fields and not get burnt by the sun.
While this is not the case to day, fat used to mean safety and power and desireablility in these cultures. For these cultures (time specific and not here today), the idea of being skinny was an anathema because it reminded them of poverty and lack. and disempowerment. It also meant of course, marriageability by which the patriarchy could transfer its money around.
I often wonder what happened because a generation later her daughter was living the anorexic dream in its entirety and I can tell you, I felt totally powerful in my lack. I was scrawny but I had never felt more alive. Anorexia was a blast, the same way that drug addiction is a high when you can get the stuff. Now thats no endorsement of anorexia but my remembrance of that time as I experienced it then. I had reached that wierd place in a patriarchal culture where I felt beyond critique. At least in my mind. In reality I was being totally strange and it took a while but it turned around.
Looking back now, and in both extremes, I cant help but feel both my mother’s generation and mine were fed a crock by our respective cultures. Be fat! No be thin! no be….just be something else, be whatever you are not. Cause whatever you are is not enough. Thats the truth about this whole argument.
As soon as Beth Ditto is critiqued (or even lauded) for her obesity, a magazine will tell you Kiera Knightly is disgusting for her protruding bones (while showing you pictures of Posh Spice’s dimpled thighs). It doesnt matter, this culture is obsessed with another place. I probably sounding Derridean now with my talk of deferment – But its true, for women there are no arrivals. Wherever you are is never good enough….
I dont have one female friend who is totally happy with her body. Not one. Even the thin ones. Their calves arent right. Or their thighs are too big. Or whatever, another place but not here. Not now.
The biggest fattie of them all – the very sleek West – seems to have developed one hell of an obsession with the excess of its empty calories, and the site on which that anxiety is inscribed is seen much more regularly on the bodies of women than of men. We need to work on that at least even as we tackle the rise in obesity levels.
I don’t think that there is still a radical gulf between men’s and women’s body image anxiety. Satisfaction stats show that it’s still noticeably higher in women, but not massively so. What are the sociological reasons for the steadily narrowing difference? I think a lot of anecdotal observations about this issue are confounded by males’ lower tendency to talk openly about personal anxieties.
“Yeah, same BBB. After a while you just kick your constant desire for food. It’s psychological retraining.”
This is very true, David. Takes time, takes time.
“Helen takes me to task for suggesting that under the current social conditions women have greater power to influence the issue of fatness than men.”
Well, it’s true though.
“I often wonder what happened because a generation later her daughter was living the anorexic dream in its entirety and I can tell you, I felt totally powerful in my lack. I was scrawny but I had never felt more alive. Anorexia was a blast, the same way that drug addiction is a high when you can get the stuff. Now thats no endorsement of anorexia but my remembrance of that time as I experienced it then. I had reached that wierd place in a patriarchal culture where I felt beyond critique. At least in my mind. In reality I was being totally strange and it took a while but it turned around.”
That’s an interesting and honest analysis.
“As soon as Beth Ditto is critiqued (or even lauded) for her obesity, a magazine will tell you Kiera Knightly is disgusting for her protruding bones (while showing you pictures of Posh Spice’s dimpled thighs). It doesnt matter, this culture is obsessed with another place. I probably sounding Derridean now with my talk of deferment – But its true, for women there are no arrivals. Wherever you are is never good enough….”
It’s so true, and very aggravating. Yes, women have been fed loads of old crock for so long we must be totally disconnected from what we truly need.
How it is true?
Sorry Darlene, I was asking about your second-last comment. (Although I don’t follow how both bits you quote can be true, since they contradict each other…)
“Wherever you are is never good enough….â€?
Sorry, it’s relatively early and I had a cracking time at the theatre last night (see The Government Inspector, it’s a hoot).
I think Casey raises issues to do with weight that ensure the matter is much more complicated than some (well, Razor – who has raised some interesting points though) have suggested. I think I will come back to it when my brain perks up a bit.
Don’t worry about it, not important. I wouldn’t mind a night in the theatre; I’ll check out your tip.
Interesting debate over several days in the LA-Times dustup section:
(Banging head on desk) Darlene, why is it true that women have more influence over their kids’ weight? and do we need to be fatalistic about it?
Would it not be better to begin, now, to teach boys that they are responsible for their own health and that they are to share the load of looking after their childrens’ diet / lifestyle, than taking the attitude of, “we’ll address this teensy chick’s problem after we’ve totally solved the problem that the tabloids tell us is more important.”
Which is, of course, an ever receding horizon.
“Darlene, why is it true that women have more influence over their kids’ weight? and do we need to be fatalistic about it?”
Well, it’s true because in the majority of 2-parent cases women are the ones mostly responsible for meal preparation/purchase for their kids. And because single mothers are much more numerous than single fathers. Recognition of this is not fatalism, merely realism. I, for example, recognise it yet prefer it were otherwise.
Of course, all that’s true, Helen. However, the reality is as FDB as outlined it.
So the “reality” (that is, the socially constructed gender breakdown of tasks and responsibilities) will never change?
Should it change?
Would encouraging change in that regard be one of the positive steps we could take towards addressing the “obesity epidemic™”, rather than just wringing our hands and talking about it?
Normative v Positive.
The eternal battle for semantic clarity rages ever on. By definition, one supposes.
I grew up with very health and gender-conscious parents who shared kitchen duties, and was cooking for the family myself once or twice a week from my early teens. This was excellent for my domestic politics and culinary skills, but I don’t think it necessarily follows that a gender-equal food procurement and preparation model would yield better health outcomes.
“So the “realityâ€? (that is, the socially constructed gender breakdown of tasks and responsibilities) will never change?
Should it change?”
Of course, it shouldn’t. No, hang on. Of course, it should. I’m a feminist, of course I think it should change. I’m also a realist, and I know that mums prepare most things for their kids.
As for blokes cooking, I think if some of us had to depend on blokes to feed us when we were nippers we would have been living on chips and beer. Times have changed.
I had a few thoughts, relating to various points in the thread….
1. Beth Ditto doesn’t have the kind of amazing voice that Katie Noonan does, but she has a powerful voice – strong, with awesome expression and tone. That strength and attitude is what I really love about the Gossips.
2. I think that the real positive point about the discussion of Beth Ditto’s looks is that very occasionally someone actually just discusses her sense of style, rather than simply being excited/appalled by the fact that she isn’t thin. The real point of ‘fat acceptance’ is that we can and should actually just be able to appreciate and respect all kinds of looks.
3. In essence, I think pretending that commenting on someone else’s physique is okay ‘because it’s about health’ is the opposite of this kind of celebration of the many different ways that people can look interesting and awesome. Whether someone is as healthy as they can be is not something that one can or should determine, or something that we can or should judge by judging their weight.
4. Inevitably, we read our own and other people’s body weight according to a number of different tropes: ‘fatness’ as laziness or lack of self-control; ‘thinness’ as discipline and energy; toned muscles as discipline, energy, power; ‘thinness’ or emaciation as self-denial or control or autonomy; ‘thinness’ or emaciation as frailty, vulnerability, or a physical iteration of emotional stress or suffering, etc. These meanings may be reasonable, because your body is related to what you do. But a lot of these meanings are more severe and more judgemental for women – and are different versions of other damaging ideas and expectations about women.
Personally, I dislike the fact that we celebrate what is undeniably a frail, fragile and sometimes suffering kind of thinness. Someone like Beth Ditto, who manages to communicate strength and confidence in an unconventional way – and without the thin fitness which bears such close resemblance to taut frailty – warms the cockles of my heart.
I was going to say something about judgments of ‘bad’ mothers, but the post was long enough! Apologies for that…
Something very strange about this “reality” where food is all taken at home and under parental supervision. Why’s it the responsibility of the person who buys and cooks the dinner? Aren’t regulators and the food industry also a wee bit responsible? I thought I read somewhere that kids today drink some astonishing quantity of sugared soft drink. Bit hard for Mum to police that when there are vending machines in every public place, and ads on every flat surface.
“Aren’t regulators and the food industry also a wee bit responsible?”
Well, someone has got to be held responsible for all those ads in kiddie TV time.
“I think that the real positive point about the discussion of Beth Ditto’s looks is that very occasionally someone actually just discusses her sense of style, rather than simply being excited/appalled by the fact that she isn’t thin.”
I hope that’s the case, I really do. I haven’t seen an article about her that hasn’t mentioned those things, but I am a big old dag.
“Personally, I dislike the fact that we celebrate what is undeniably a frail, fragile and sometimes suffering kind of thinness. Someone like Beth Ditto, who manages to communicate strength and confidence in an unconventional way – and without the thin fitness which bears such close resemblance to taut frailty – warms the cockles of my heart.”
Kirsty, women like Pink and Ditto and I can’t think of anyone else should be celebrated, although excess consumption of any kind shouldn’t be.
Wotchit, or you’ll get the Devil Drink breathing sulphur down your neck.
“Wotchit, or you’ll get the Devil Drink breathing sulphur down your neck.”
Tee hee, fortunately I only can drink one glass of wine and I am as dotty as all get out.
Death to the demon drink.
Probably … Maybe … But obviously you’ve got to be pragmatic about these things. Things might be slowly changing regarding food stocking (fast food has taken some turns for the healthier, grocery chains are slowly increasing ranges of healthy alternatives to processed food, etc.) but the person who buys and prepares food is the one doing the bulk of the feeding, and – even more importantly – doing de facto nutritional eductation.
Most people have a normative idea of food from childhood experiences. It’s a lot easier to have good nutritional habits if that’s your foundational concept of ‘what food is’. It sets a benchmark.
I do the great bulk of cooking and preparation in our household. It’s a right pain in the rear sometimes, but the alternative is a lot worse (unless provided a decent prepared meal most people have an almost innate tendency to buy cheap crap).
You’ll be happy to know I’m taking up your slack.
Did someone call? I see my name’s been typed three times. Hrrrhmmm. Well then. Here I am. Or is that Beetlejuice? I can never remember.
There’s no way that just having a sedentary modern Western lifestyle, or eating in the manner of a well-fed prosperous human adult, should qualify as “excess”. Excess is a matter of trial, struggle, and effort, it’s not something you can just do in front of Kerry-Anne.
What’s “excess” anyway? Second helpings at dinner or a Mars bar on the train, I don’t think so. Excess is Richard Pryor being interviewed by journalists in his underwear, sitting between two naked Scandinavian prostitutes, behind a coffee table bearing dinner plates piled with cocaine pyramids. Excess is Dylan Thomas. Boris Yeltsin. George Best. Pete Doherty. Excess is Dorothy Parker insulting you so nastily you don’t even get the joke until you’ve shaken off your hangover. Excess is Russian oligarchs having Tupperware parties, but with English Premier League players. Excess doesn’t have to be pointed out to you, least of all by magazines in the checkout queue; excess announces itself, shakes your hand, throws up down your shirt, and offers you one of your own drinks.
And I don’t know what you’ve got against the Belgians, Darlene. Some cultures have a deep spiritual connection to chips and beer.
I would worship at the altar of chips (not beer) if I could, but as I’ve already suggested, my weight has been a bit of a problem over the years.
Does FDB stand for Full-on Deadset Boozer?
I agree DD, with all the preceding.
There word excess is wasted on cases of incremental self-harm. Blaze of glory or nothing.
Nah, just my initials.
So mundane.
Darlene, if chips-and-mayonnaise in the Belgian style aren’t your thing, you could attend the Iglesia de las Patatas Bravas, L’eglise Sacrée du Poutine, or maybe or Röschti-kirche, the very strict Swiss sect.
Anyway, weight gain isn’t a problem. It’s an added feature.
La Belle Raclette sans merci?