Yeah We FIGURED Exercise Can’t Completely Stop Fat From Making You Sick. Your Point??

Just a quick rage post, everyone. This week you may have found some punchy, alarming news headlines pop up such as “FAT BUT FIT IS A MYTH”. Scary news. Scary fat news. It’s that kind of thing when “journalists” are desperate for material so they dig into recent academic research to pull out a claim out of context that gets everyone’s attention. Bravo. These news stories are alluding to a study out of a Spanish university that concluded people in “overweight” and “obese” BMI categories remained at high risk of cardiometabolic diseases like high cholesterol, hypertension, and diabetes. But in both the articles I read – one from CNN and one from U.S. News & World Report (see below for links) – the study authors reiterate that their findings also show that regular physical exercise lowered everyone’s risk of these diseases regardless of their BMI, corroborating other studies. I’ve written about this before. CNN interviewed a Duke University administrator who cautioned that this is a correlative – not causative – cross-sectional study (one of the easiest ones to conduct). He mentioned that it could be that some “obese” participants started exercising regularly BECAUSE they learned they had new health issues. You can’t know from a study like this.

This brings me to my biggest beef here…. wh- what… who are these articles for? What do you hope to accomplish? They’re setting up a straw man of well you know, you can’t stay FAT and expect exercise to fix any issues your fat may be causing. Wh- who the hell is saying this? The study authors admit exercise still helps. Besides, again, there still is not scientific consensus about what exactly makes people get fatter and how fat influences disease. And, again,

WE DO NOT YET KNOW HOW TO SHRINK FAT AND MAINTAIN LEANNESS AT A POPULATION LEVEL

Both the articles (both of them?) have a wrap-up with some authority claiming that it’s important to be physically active and get or stay lean. Ok, but HOW? Get out of here with this shit. And shame on the writers and editors for including good news somewhere in the text while having misleading titles and introductions that imply the opposite. Save it for the Daily Mail.

Exercise Doesn’t Boost Health If You Stay Obese, Study Finds | Health News | US News

‘Fat but fit’ is a myth when it comes to heart health, new study shows – CNN

The Word “Overweight” Really Doesn’t Mean Anything

We’re back again with a hard-to-search query, and lo and behold it’s still about fat stigma. This time I’m trying to investigate the use of the term “overweight”, looking for nuanced analyses of its multiple uses and their consequences. But I have come back empty-handed. And whenever that happens, I BLOG.

THIS…. this is that blog.

I was attempting to watch a film analysis on YouTube and when this guy referred to the main character as “overweight”, I couldn’t watch anymore. Would people please, please stop using this word?! It’s not just offensive, it’s stupid. It’s a stupid word. I know what he meant. He meant fat. But fat in a “kind” way, in a way that suggests… not that fat, just fat enough for it to be noticeable. First off, you’re not granting anyone a kindness when you use this euphemism. The reason you’re using it is because you want to indicate that you can see a difference in someone’s body proportions, shape, or composition that qualifies them as “fat”, but that they are not REALLY fat, like, the real fat people over there that are actually the ones who are ill or weird or subhuman. It’s not “fat” – it’s “fat lite”. “Fat-ish”. But by doing so, you’re reinforcing the notion that there is a level of fat that is too far gone, too different, too inexcusable. You’re reinforcing the belief that there is any amount of fat that someone has that could make them chiefly responsible, and that we know exactly the point when someone is so fat that it amounts to an illness. But more importantly, when we say the word “overweight” we really mean 3 things, and we use them interchangeably:

Having so much fat that your physical or mental* health is worse than ideal**
Having a particular body shape – some proportion of fat that is intermediate between the proportions commonly seen in the media and the fattest person you can think of
Having a proportion of fat that you think is greater than average

And by “average” I again mean consistent with common media depictions. In reality, many people are fatter than what you see on social networking apps and TV. According to the CDC , the average (mean) height for a female in the United States is about 5 feet, 4 inches (162 cm) and the average weight is about 170 pounds (77 kg). A rough estimate for the resulting average BMI is around 29, which is considered “overweight” by medical authorities. Will a female with a BMI of 29 LOOK fat? It depends, both on the proportions of the person and the schema of the observer. Are they so fat that their health is suffering? Perhaps, but it would still be difficult to know that with any certainty just by looking at them. Are they TYPICAL? Yes, yes they are typical.

I hope people will see that the criteria I listed above are, for the most part, mutually exclusive. People who look “chubby” are likely not over-weight in the sense that they are fatter than average. They probably are average. There are many people who have physical and mental disorders that we associate with being fat, but we don’t suspect it, because they aren’t fat. And besides, at least 80% of American adults may be “overfat”, which is largely to do with visceral fat depots (surrounding your guts); this figure includes a significant proportion of people whose BMI would classify them as having “normal weight”. Where’s our “concern” for them?

So please, let’s stop saying “overweight”. What should we use instead? Oh hell I don’t have ALL the answers. …. Let’s just say FAT for now and I dunno… use modifiers? I’m open to suggestions.

Thanks for reading.

For more on fat stigma, I like this blog post from Scientific American:

Fat is Not the Problem – Fat Stigma Is

*Being “obese” is associated with a greater likelihood of suffering from mental illnesses. Currently, the direction of causation constitutes a chicken-or-egg debate, but it seems that at least in the case of major depression, there is some evidence that both are likely to lead to each other. The mechanisms are not yet well understood. We do know that fat stigma causes increased risks for mental and physiological illnesses irrespective of BMI. Mental health may also suffer from the neurochemical and endocrine disruption that can occur with a diet of high-processed foods and a lack of regular exercise, but these conditions hold true for everybody.

**”Ideal” is, of course, subjective.

The Morality of Fat – Levels of Misconception

Tiers of the Morality of Fat:

1) Being fat does not always mean you’re unhealthy.

2) Being healthy is not always ethical.

People use their physical and mental stamina in order to oppress others, and the pleasure that they can experience can make them apathetic and ignorant to the ills of the world and other people in it.

3) Being ethical is not just about being prosocial; it’s also about living the good life.

4) Being prosocial is not always possible.

Claims that fat people over-consume at the expense of lower income people across the world, or at the expense of the environment, may have some validity. But on the whole, everybody in the middle class who live in developed nations use a great deal of energy in their daily lives, such that any additional costs from eating more food and requirements of supplementary healthcare are unlikely to be proportionally significant. More importantly, most middle and lower class people in developed nations face systemic barriers to having affordable healthy food and time for exercise, as well as mental healthcare for disorders like addiction and anxiety. Asking people to simply put in more effort toward eliminating their need for consumption cannot be enough.

5) Living the good life is subjective.

For some people, living a longer life or having lots of physically demanding experiences is important. But they’re not the only keys to a happy life, and some goods that come from being alive actually come at the expense of a longer life or being able to have lots of physical experiences, irrespective of how fat you are or how much you eat. You can’t have it all. It’s important to some people spend a majority of their time making art, solving puzzles, or enjoying lots of food. You can’t just assume that these things are less valuable. Though it can be argued that changing your diet and activity level can boost your performance and enjoyment of these experiences as well, that is true only to a point. Specializing in anything you enjoy still requires some sacrifice, and being human is about more than just being in tune with your biology.

6) Living the life you want is not always possible.

The majority of people who go on some kind of diet program do not experience sustainable weight loss. Exercise burns significantly fewer calories than people think. Fat loss may be possible in the near future for significant segments of the population, but not unless there are substantial changes in food access, job security, healthcare access, education, and media advertising. For now at least, most of us will have to accept the fact that we are going to get fatter, or stay fat, for a while. Exercise is still beneficial in a lot of ways other than simply losing fat, but it’s also something that is difficult for many people to do consistently. Moreover, people are naturally unlucky about all sorts of things, not just in the realm of fat. Some people respond to calorie restriction better than others; some people have more resources to support them than others. Some people grow up with physical activities and healthy eating as positive and reliable parts of their lives. Many do not. People have impairments, deformities, or injuries that they are born with or acquire later in life – cancers, blindness, missing limbs – that carve out life paths with very different outcomes. For these people, joy and achievement cannot look the same as it does for average people. That’s not necessarily a negative thing, but oftentimes people with disabilities have to be more creative and tenacious when society does not give them a simple blueprint for what experiences will make them happy, much less what actions they can take to make them happen.

Worst of all, depression can make this entire journey not seem worth it. Life is inherently full of suffering, confusion, grief, and regret. Sometimes this is downright intolerable. Everyone deserves the opportunity to change their circumstances so they can have new experiences and respond differently to life’s challenges, and even when people have depression… a new job, a new friend, or a new home may be all it takes to begin to make that happen. You could be like me, a person whose anxiety is frequently so bad that I overestimate the risks of physical harm and social embarrassment for trying new things, and I underestimate my worth, my capabilities, and my capacity to handle setbacks, such that I rarely enjoy the benefits of change. But there are those people for whom these resources are out of sight or out of reach for a long, long time. And there are also people who may never respond positively to these changes even when they occur. Human life is messy, and in this very fundamental way people can have vastly different inner worlds, and some people are more different than others. I can only offer this: you can never be fully sure that you are one of the people that can never benefit from a change in your life. But I would not harass even a loved one to stay alive and look for new possibilities no matter what. To do such a thing is not only presumptuous; it is selfish. And above all, it is cruel.

You’ll Benefit More From Exercise Than From Being Thin

The University of Cambridge published a longitudinal study in 2015 that found people were twice as likely to die prematurely if they were inactive than if they were obese. A moderate amount of activity amounting to a brisk 20-minute walk daily is sufficient to decrease your risk of death 7.5%. Lowering your BMI below 30 kg/m^2 would only decrease your risk by 3.6%.

This data is important, not just to reduce fat stigma but also to orient people at all levels of fatness toward an achievable, manageable, and sustainable threshold to increasing health outcomes. If these findings ring true, then the scary level of hype from the fitness industry, wellness industry, and the medical field is overwhelming, and it will continue to intimidate and dissuade many people from getting the benefits from exercise that they deserve. People should have the right not to exercise, but this toxic association between fatness and health, versus exercise and health, has got to go.

P.S.:

You know what ELSE would be nice? If major publications would refrain from using misleading, lazy, garbage microaggressions. This article in Scientific American from 2015 mentions that people can see health benefits from walking at a casual pace for just 2 minutes every hour, though at least 150 minutes a week of more “moderate intensity” exercise such as brisk walking is recommended. The article ends thus:

“The assumption here, of course, is that those casual walks around the house don’t take you to the refrigerator for a snack.”

… A blatant, and frankly unnecessary, piece of fat prejudice. Note that nowhere in the article is there a discussion of obesity or caloric intake. The POINT, people, is that a casual exercise like walking can improve your body’s functioning, not that it reduces fat. Eating will not “erase” the benefits.

COVID Pan…demonium – The Real Way It’s Messing With Our Lives

I was going to post about my grievances toward China and the United States on how their infrastructures have enabled the spread of COVID and failed to accommodate people who are at risk. But I realized today that the biggest threat we face is actually from shitty human behavior. I am socially and germ-averse, so initially I was quite sympathetic to the shutdown of modern life as we know it. I don’t like crowds and I’ve wanted people to wash their hands properly for years. At long last, state and local governments have stepped in and made coping with going to work less ambiguous. And it’s only fair, given that the workplaces and schools and public transportation we have today are ill equipped to handle the spread of dangerous viruses. But unfortunately, while the rate of severe complications from SARS-CoV2 is low for most people, the fact is that the hoarding behaviors we’re seeing all around us are putting many more people’s livelihoods at risk. I’m talking about the elderly, children, the poor, and the disabled. Human greed and fear will now negatively impact more lives than any virus ever could.

P.S.: Has South Park taught us nothing? Fear and distrust often leads to more people making erratic, reckless decisions and causing more problems than the thing we’re actually afraid of.

Despite the facade of abundance when we go into supermarkets, there is a process that keeps goods in stock seemingly all of the time. When I went into my local market I was taken aback by all the empty gaps in the shelves, and I also experienced this sinking fear. It’s abnormal. There’s always stuff, so if I don’t see any, does that mean there will ever be more stuff? I understand the impulse. The systems in place exist in part by concealing all its complicated workings and giving consumers the impression of dependability and regularity. But this means we’re all largely ignorant to the forces that shape our world, and when systems experience a disturbance, we have no choice but to reckon with the truly mutable nature of these working parts and the aims of their design. … My point is, there WILL be more toilet paper, everyone.

P.S.S.: I’m going to post some resources for COVID-19 as they come up.

My thanks to Cheddar for this informative video about hand washing. I was surprised to learn this.

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.

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.