The Consequences of Negative Fat Representation

When I was doing research on the presence of fat cartoon characters on television, I came upon a few news articles that discussed a 2015 study out of the University of Colorado. The articles warn about the study’s findings that kids who see cartoon characters with a “rounder” shape are more likely to make unhealthy food choices afterward, unless they are first reminded about healthy behaviors. I immediately became worried about an implication that fat characters had ought to NOT be visible on TV, so as to not prime kids into eating poorly. I think it is very important to have better fat representation in the media, especially for kids. The researchers wrote that there is already evidence that children form negative stereotypes about fat people by the age of 3, and by 8 years old they think fat people are “lazy” and “less healthy”.

I think it’s not completely clear that seeing fat stereotypes “cause” kids to eat more or eat unhealthily, or if it’s really that seeing fat characters LETS them NOT police their own eating. From what I’ve read in the study itself there is no mention of this possibility, but I think it’s important. Because in a way I think that’s not a bad thing, and if anything, what might contribute to a “letting loose” mentality is the constant admonishment for eating “bad” foods that kids are exposed to. Researchers have found that part of the reason diets don’t work for most people is that denying yourself foods you think are bad for you makes you crave them even more. So I think we should hold off on blaming depictions of fat characters indulging themselves.

I hope that people don’t refrain from portraying positive and diverse fat characters in the media because A) the only reason kids and adults hold negative stereotypes about fat people is because the media historically shows fat people as overindulgent, lazy, fearful, etc. and B) you’re NOT going to get kids to make more healthy food choices by erasing fat people from the media; they’ll just think only thin people eat healthy and that there’s no place for fat people who eat healthy, that both these things can’t be true simultaneously.

What People Miss When It Comes To Exercise: My Story

I agree with Joe Rogan when he says many people are averse to initial discomfort when it comes to exercise. But discomfort is interpreted differently from person to person. I have had a lifelong anxiety about exercise, especially rigorous activities and activities that are social or require a lot of coordination. I am a survivor of childhood trauma and I have been variously diagnosed with autism and anxiety disorders. For me, physical discomfort equals pain, pain equals injury, and injury indicates both social failure and the fear that something’s changed and it will never go back to normal.

Many forms of exercise, at least the ways they were introduced to me, did not take advantage of my learning differences and instead they made me feel dumb and confused. I could never take the time to understand the physical tasks involved in my own way. And I’m also very sensitive, so I have a time-consuming process of rationally understanding how to complete a new task and how it connects to what I already know, as well as the emotional component, which requires a time-out to assess and express how I feel. In this context, activities like running, jumping, and climbing were prohibitive and I only came to approach them in my late teens. Then of course I’m socially anxious and have a difficult time with teamwork and group learning – both in terms of getting generalized instruction BECAUSE I’m in a group and also imitating a peer in a group. I don’t know to what extent this stemmed from a fear of disapproval or that I rarely found explanations or demonstrations to be sufficient for me to feel confident trying something new. I’d like to believe it’s the second one. Either way, exercise had a pernicious way of bringing out my lifelong risk aversion and really exploiting it in ways that most academic and creative activities did not. Most. What really sucks about all this is that from an early age, I associated attempting physical activity with verbal abuse, cognitive frustration, and social exclusion. And that means I have to work extra hard to be physically healthy, because every time I learn a complicated exercise or participate in games or suffer a minor injury, all the fear and all the anger swell up in me. I feel like I’m back in elementary school, like nothing’s changed.

Many people associate getting healthier with self-discipline, goal setting, perseverance, and keeping to a schedule. But I don’t want all that. I want to feel more expressive and show it in my body language. I want to feel excited to travel somewhere new and explore on foot. I want to cook and craft. I want to use my body to make new things and share what I’ve learned with other people. I want to use exercise to lean into my strengths in ways I couldn’t when I was younger, rather than keep trying to learn exercises that I spent much of my life envying people over, the ones that didn’t acknowledge me.

Thanks for reading.

Greek Identity

What is the identity of Greeks today? Who is a Greek? What does it mean to be Greek? What do the Greeks of the modern age have to contribute in terms of their beliefs and experiences that are distinct from the contributions made by the Classical Greeks?

Much of the Greek PR aims to highlight the legacy and culture of the Classical Greeks: their philosophy, literature, architecture, and science. But when I got to thinking about it I realized that modern Greeks are a different people than those older Greeks and have a different cultural makeup – namely, that of an Orthodox Christian, Roman people for 1000 years that were under Islamic, Turkish leadership for another couple hundred years. You see this very strongly in the food. For example, most filo pastries are Ottoman inventions and exist in modern Turkey as well. Is there a lasting legacy of Classical Greece in the modern Greek state? Absolutely. But no more than all the other peoples that should be considered equal inheritors of Classical Greek culture, which at the very least includes all the peoples who live in countries that were formally territories of the Western Roman Empire and all the places that the Romans occupied and traded. That includes England, Portugal, Spain, France, and Italy, but also any Germanic or Slavic nation that uses a Latin or Latin-derived alphabet. By extension, this includes the peoples who live in former colonies of the European powers in the 15^th century, constituting the English-, French-, Spanish-, and Portuguese-speaking world. All these peoples have cultures that can trace parts of their origins to Classical Greece. In that sense, much of the world is no less “Greek” than the citizens of the Hellenic Republic or the descendants of the Greek diaspora of the 20^th century, such as myself.

What is noteworthy, however, is the distinct cultural attitudes, practices, and worldview of the new “Greeks” – these Turkish- and Muslim-influenced Byzantine Roman people. Who are these people, I wonder? What new things do they have to teach us? What is unique about their perspective?

Is It More Natural to Distance Yourself From Feelings, or Live In Them?

I’m doing some initial work in cognitive behavioral therapy. I’ve been tasked with starting to notice automatic thoughts and reflect on them. It reminds me of a concept in Eastern philosophy called third… something (someone help me out here): basically, that you should learn to not just react to an event, but take a step back and analyze your initial reaction, and then evaluate that feeling and make a choice.

One of my primary motivations for delving into this is to examine the self. Are my emotions me? Is it more “authentic” to trust my feelings to make decisions? BigThink has a good video on this – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3-dxHavRe8 – So many of our initial impressions of new things that happen to us come from learned patterns of thought that were by chance and out of our control. They hardly constitute a truthful representation of reality. So then why are we so defensive of these feelings?

I remember seeing a video explaining how in society we are not given tools to understand how to pilot our brains. We assume they work just fine on their own. What I wonder is, is it natural for humans to balance automatic thinking with a culture of self-regulatory habits and teachings – a skill many of us have forgotten, a missing piece – or is this a relatively new step in human evolution, a step toward ailing the inherent suffering that comes with learned patterns of behavior from childhood?

Does Fat Shaming Work? And Why Are We Fat, Anyhow?

I feel I have to address the comments Bill Maher made in his editorial segment at the end of his show on Friday. I’m certainly not the only one who will. I’m sure there will be many posts and articles in the coming days (which isn’t unusual for Bill). In my summary, Bill Maher argued for the use of shame to relieve the public of the negative health effects of being fat. He characterized shame as a useful tool to promote healthy behaviors in the same vain as smoking, drinking, and wearing a seat belt. Bill Maher has been frequently cited for his views on African Americans, Muslims, and gay and trans people… and Stan Lee. So this isn’t new. And he’s made discriminatory remarks about fat people many times before. Still, as someone who’s been fat most of their life, and spent a great deal of time studying how the media handles diet, weight, and health, I’m going to address issues that I see with his argument.

I think people who are addicted to smoking tobacco or drinking alcohol should not be shamed out of it. Like any addiction, there are neural, hormonal, behavioral, and socioeconomic factors that support smoking and drinking. From what I’ve read, shaming isn’t even the most effective way to change any behavior – not for children or for adults. People generally understand if their behaviors are harmful. They still feel compelled to do them anyway. Only if you address the factors supporting peoples’ addictions can they be free to “will” their way to new behaviors. Also, drinking in particular has a long grandfathered history in Western cultures, integrated into so many aspects of life. How are addicts supposed to fight THAT, exactly? …Even with the current science on how harmful drinking can be. More than that, food addiction and eating disorders are not the same because – and really, this doesn’t take much observational prowess to point out – you chemically MUST eat, practically every single day, for the rest of your life. If you want to stop smoking or drinking, ideally you would aim for abstinence because you would want to mitigate the temptation to overdo it, and to eliminate any other opportunities to do further damage to your body than you already have. But what if you were told you needed to drink an alcoholic beverage every single day – forever – but any more will hasten your death?

I do agree with the premise that corporations are greedy and manipulate us into behaviors that hurt us in order to increase their profits. We should have the choice about how we want our bodies to look and whether we eat more healthfully. Right now, we don’t have that choice. Sugars are addictive, the liver doesn’t process fructose very well, vegetables are relatively expensive, and people don’t have cultural allowances for homemade meals. Exercise isn’t seamlessly integrated into everyday life for many people – instead, it’s optional, and it’s up to each person individually to figure out how they can do it. This is… a pain in the ass. Scientists estimate that at least 70% of people have enough abdominal fat to affect health outcomes. That’s got to be a larger pool of folks than people who have eating disorders. For many people, fat is something that just kind of… happens. And a lot of them aren’t even noticeably fat. Shame certainly isn’t going to reach these people, and it shouldn’t. Easy access to unhealthy food, and rituals designed around it, are definitely part of why people less healthy than they could be. But holding people individually accountable to eating better is incredibly difficult in this context, and it’s only one contributor to why people get fat. And let’s say you can get people who are already experiencing poorer health from being fat, or from having an eating disorder, to adopt healthier eating and exercise habits. Their bodies will still never behave as if they hadn’t had an unhealthier experience, what with the changes to the reward system of the brain, the hormone ghrelin, and increased fat cell count and long-term lowering of metabolism in some cases. Does fixing “bad” eating habits change all of this? Will they never need to cross paths with food advertising, restaurants, or catered events? We do not have the tools (yet) to effectively treat the entire body for the adverse effects of getting fat. But we can invest in changing the infrastructure that supports the lack of food choice and exercise opportunities. And all the while, let’s not shame people anymore.

I’ll post references when I get around to it. In the meantime, I’m exhausted. I could go for some cookies and some bread. And like, also a danish.

I’m Not Too Hot About The City

This city is a joke, and the joke’s on me. Party people throughout the building. Tourists and shoppers on the weekend. Cars and motorcycles screaming by at night, and buses by day. The people are squeezed, and public services have no funding. Can the police help me? Can the bus company help me? I barely got food assistance and I had to appeal my disability. Are these people really going to do anything to protect MY interests?

City life here is nightmarish. The arts are held hostage by a cage of homelessness, gun violence, and public health hazards. And there sure are hazards – potholes, screaming vehicles, construction sites, just to name a few. I’m supposed to appreciate the history? The affluence? The neighborhood charms? Give me a break. Why the rich choose to live here is beyond me. Cafes are quaint, but they’re loud and cramped. Public transportation is gross, loud, and unreliable. Parking is expensive and quite a maneuver to pull off. Clothing stores are here, but they’re for small people with money. I’m neither of these things. The highways and bridges are oddly designed and require experience just to survive without hitting anyone, and then when you do, all you have to look forward to is traffic and aggressive drivers. I feel bad that I may never enjoy the museums and the theaters, the galleries and the schools. This place sells itself as a furnace of learning and creativity, but all I’ve seen in the four years I’ve lived here are social inequalities and bombastic, disruptive events. The biggest benefit I’ve gotten for living in this city has been the access to good healthcare and psychotherapy, but I think it only serves to mitigate the damage from living here. I’ve never had a job and I’m terrified of committing myself to new people and new situations, but I have to get out of here.

Going To The Theater is Hard

There are at least 3 draws to going to the theater that I can see, and I seem to have problem with each of them.

The history. When you go to the theater, you’re taking part in the history of live performance as well as the design of the theater itself. You’re part of a tradition but perhaps more important, you can step into the past and experience something that others before you have experienced. You have the chance to see through their eyes and to sit where they sat. It’s all the more impressive if you know figures in history that have visited the theater or been on stage. For me though, “history” is code for “outdated” or “dangerous.” The seats are too small for me, it hurt to twist my body to see the stage, and it’s a germ hazard. I have no romance for the experience of those who came before me if new technologies render these hazards unnecessary.
The collective. The theater experience is a group effort, where people from diverse backgrounds have an opportunity to convene, cooperate, and enjoy an experience they can share with each other. For me, this is harrowing. We all have different physical and emotional needs and it’s difficult to compromise by sitting next to many strangers and following directions from theater personnel. Also, you’re deferent to market forces when it comes to the loudness of the speakers. For example, I’ve been to a small theater where the noise from the seats would often go above 100 dB, and when I asked the technician about it, they said that people really like it (and in this theater, BYOB is allowed). Besides my hearing issues, this is proven to be a dangerous level of sound. I’m in danger because the theater has to sell enough tickets to keep afloat, and to do that, they have to give the masses what they want. No amount of imagined camaraderie could grant me enough deindividuation to ignore the discomfort and danger I’m exposed to.
The aesthetic. In a large, ornate theater, the architecture is often impressive. The set design and the costumes can be rich and ingenious. When it comes to musicals in particular, you can hear live voice, dance, and an orchestra. You can be dazzled and surprised by all the sights and sounds. While I admit that there is a quality to this experience that is not replicable by viewing media at home, I’m an investigative person and I like understanding how things work. Often when I’m at a show, unless I’ve studied the aspects of the craft beforehand, I feel assaulted by the experience someone else wants to give me, with little context as to how it came together and why the members of the production made their creative choices. These questions bounce around in my mind and I’m usually unable to take in the sensations, or even follow the plot or the dialogue.

But wait! I forgot to mention how theatergoing is divorced from its historical context. I live in the city, so if I go to a show it’s typically in a busy downtown area. The obnoxious street noises alone makes getting there and waiting outside an extremely miserable ordeal. These theaters were built many decades ago, before highways and sometimes even the automobile. When I go to the theater, I feel like I’m part of a forced nostalgia where I have to experience the inconvenience of the old without being able to escape the nuisances of modern life. Sorry, but pass.

The Trap of Perfectionism

Is it more of a lie to go into a social setting or try a new skill while feeling broken and damaged? Or is it more of a lie to deny yourself an opportunity to be who you are even on days where you feel hurt or scared? My entire life I’ve a put a moratorium on taking risks and expressing myself because I’m afraid and embarrassed about either my body or my perceived lack of knowledge on a subject. I like to be right. I like to feel in control. And the worst part is that I would rather make up a story that there’s something terribly wrong with my health than sit in a state of uncertainty. I fill in the gaps, and more often than not, I fill those gaps with negative assumptions. But in my quest for authenticity, I am confronted with the fact that I am deliberately silencing myself because I want things to look correct. It’s black-and-white thinking. If your eyes hurt, don’t look at things. If your ears hurt, don’t listen to things. If your feet hurt, don’t walk. If your voice hurts, don’t speak. And I believe these thoughts – they feel rational. I feel like, if I’m injured, you’re not seeing the real me. You’re seeing a lie. But life is more complicated than that. It’s healthy to reaffirm your love for your hobbies and for the people close to you by indulging them and being present, even when you feel like you’re not your best. Some injuries don’t heal unless you exercise that part of your body. Long-term plans require short-term sacrifices. The intersection of your passion and your circumstances results in new experiences, and maybe that’s something I should learn to appreciate better.

I think that being adept at navigating complex rules and having a competent level of emotional intelligence are mutually exclusive.