I’m one of those who said “screw it”, started loving my body, and taking better care of it naturally resulted. I think it would be more productive to encourage people at any weight and size to exercise and continue to tweak their eating to be as healthy as possible. I don’t understand why fat is the target here because there are plenty of thin people with health problems and even high proportions of fat. Just because a person is thin doesn’t mean they exercise or eat right.
People who are militant about accepting themselves are trying to overcome the barrage of constant pressure to be thin. They are desperate…because the world is telling them they are fat, worthless and lazy. Maybe they are fat, but you CANNOT tell ANYTHING ELSE about that person’s character until you know their story. I don’t blame them for being defensive. Instead of making fat people the outcasts, maybe we should focus on those who don’t exercise or eat right. Oh, maybe that’s because they are targets because they are FAT, not because they are unhealthy.
So far as I know, every major American health association has corporate sponsors. Ever been to or presented at an American Heart Association meeting? I have, on numerous occasions (gave an oral presentation last year, as a scientist, not a corporate shill, though I work in industry, a teeny biotech). Big pharma funds half the meeting, at least. Their presence is absolutely huge. Heart disease makes drug companies billions upon billions of dollars every year, and they pony up plenty of cash to support professional medical associations, plus basic and clinical research. It’d be nice if the world were run purely by public interests, but that’s a utopia we haven’t achieved yet. In the mean time, we have the imperfect bedfellows of public advocacy groups and the private interests they depend upon for funds. So either you trust nothing the major medical associations tell you because of corporate taint, or you accept that these associations can operate with a modicum of professional and ethical autonomy from their for-profit sponsors, who actually do sometimes give for no other reason than to support the common good.
Heart on My Sleeve, no one here is balming this group for being defensive about how they are treated. If you’ve been reading the posts on this thread, what pisses people off is the dangerous bullshit they are spreading.
So are you saying we’re singling out only fat people for advice about good diet and exercise? Is that what you’ve come to understand from this discussion?
If so, you’re wrong. Of course everybody, fat or thin, should eat right and be active. But how could anybody argue that the need for a healthier lifestyle isn’t greater for the overweight? Sure, there are those people who are thin as a rail but drop dead of a heart attack in their forties because they have high cholesterol. Sure, we’ve all heard the stories about Jim Fixx. Those people do not represent the average heart patient, however. More than two thirds of the cases of diagnosed heart disease are related to obesity. The numbers are chilling. For example, among middle-aged women with a BMI of about 25, there’s a 50% increase from average in the rate of coronary artery disease, which can be fatal, as we all know (I know BMI is imperfect, as it does not give a good indicator of fat distribution, which is important, but once you hit the high numbers, on average, it’s all rather moot). A BMI of 25 isn’t that fantastically high. 30 isn’t even so uncommon anymore.
I exercise and try to eat right despite my relative trimness because what I’ve learned through my job scares the shit out of me, quite frankly. If I were fat it would keep me up at night.
So are you saying we’re singling out only fat people for advice about good diet and exercise? Is that what you’ve come to understand from this discussion?