caerula's Diaryland Diary

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more fat

This morning actually feels like spring might really be thinking about making an appearance. On the way to work I actually saw (shhh!) sunshine. Goes a long way to improving my general mood all by itself. If I lived in Florida I'd be so chipper all the time that everyone would hate me.

Well, I actually heard back from Susan Ager, as did the others I know of who wrote to her about her column yesterday. I am impressed that she took the time to write individual responses; I bet a lot of the letters she received weren't nearly as polite as mine. Natalie pretty much summed up what Ager said; the woman obviously has her own issues with weight, and has extrapolated her experience to apply to all overweight people. And she meant to provoke discussion with her column; she's of the opinion that her suggestions � treating overweight people like society does smokers � were obviously outrageous and unworkable; she wanted to encourage people to think about the issue. Here's part of my response.

"Unfortunately, what you and I might see as "clearly" outrageous might not seem so to others, particularly to people who have been ridiculed and judged for their size for years. People who smoke have made a choice to smoke, at one time or another. Not everyone has made a choice to be heavy in a society that values looks about all else, and losing weight isn't always a matter of choice, either.
I hope to eventually be able to wear my size 12 jeans again; that's my goal, and where I am happy with how I look. But do you know that the average "plus size" model is a size 12? At my thinnest, society still tells me that I'm fat. That's why I found the Lands End catalog so refreshing.
I'm not arguing that eating healthy is a bad thing, or that people should be fat. However, what I failed to take away from your column was that Americans' unhealthy eating habits (and yes, as a society we DO enable unhealthy eating) were your target, not fat people. Larger women are finally seeing models and television personalities their size, are finally able to buy decent clothes, are finally, finally, starting to feel likethey don't have to be ashamed to go out in public. Picking on what we eat isn't going to help us; fat people KNOW they are fat. We know what we should and shouldn't eat; some of us eat it anyway. Some of us have emotional problems with food, some of us, perhaps, just don't have the will power.
I don't have any easy answers either. But until society stops blaming the fat people and starts helping them, telling us that only thin people are beautiful while simultaneously pushing "extra biggie" helpings as good deals, things aren't going to change."

I've also found a couple of great blogs and an interesting article on the subject. Big Fat Blog keeps track of fat issues in the media. Fatty Patties also addresses the issues of body image and coming to appreciate yourself for more than how much you weigh, from a more personal viewpoint. And this Newsday article, I think, does a far better job of getting across the point Ager apparently wanted to make, without attacking fat people or business that try to make life more comfortable for the overweight. Society does make it easy to eat crap food. It's much cheaper to buy processed foodstuffs and fast food then to make a healthy meal from scratch; there's a reason, as Natalie and/or Swwoop pointed out to me (we've had so many messages back and forth on this in the last day that I can't remember who said it, sorry guys), that rich people are thinner than poor people. I can't afford a gym membership or a personal trainer, and I don't have time or energy to cook healthy meals from scratch every day. I wish I did.

8:36 a.m. - March 29, 2002

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