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

You See, It’s FUNNY Because Buying Frosting Is Supposed To Mean You’re A Failure… JK

I’ve been sitting on this post for a few weeks. I thought it would be worth finishing before the end of the holidays. Enjoy?

One of Colbert’s recent Late Show cold opens is a fake ad for Cinnabon’s pint of frosting.

In the sketch, people at a loss of what left to do to survive the boredom and isolation of the pandemic are seen eating the frosting out of the carton (which is clearly some kind of vanilla yogurt). They are sad. One of them is crying in a bathtub. The announcer’s message is: “give up”. I have some thoughts.

First off there seems to be more than one premise. Are they lampooning big fast food for (literally) capitalizing on people’s anxiety and desperation at the expense of their health, while not helping us solve our actual problems? Or are they fueling the entrenched societal narrative of shame about overeating as if due to weakness? Even if the writers mean to fault the corporations, if the sketch still requires us to agree that binge- or stress-eating processed food is a sign failure, weakness, or lack of control, then I think the joke is not worth making. At the very least, the joke should be better crafted, more on target. I see that the main joke of the Colbert clip is that Cinnabon’s rollout of their signature frosting is a reflection of the state of everyone’s pandemic stress and boredom. It’s not really trying to fault individual consumers OR Cinnabon. It’s more of a suggestion that this is the natural, logical conclusion of a months-long life disruption that’s now spilling out into the winter holidays.

… However, it’s difficult for me to give them the benefit of the doubt, since (goodness, I did NOT want to get into this but here we go) Colbert’s Late Show writers have a history of making jokes about stress eating. They make like… a lot of them. Stephen himself has a long history of doing these bits where he feigns sadness or panic and then digs into some ice cream for relief. A few times he’ll even lament “I’m fat” in a sort of “teen girl seeks support after a break up” bit. And I haven’t even mentioned the many times he takes a passing jab at his own appearance; he tends to view his average amount of athleticism, muscle, and fat as evidence that he’s undisciplined, unaccomplished, and generally not manly (all in spite of the fact that Colbert is a very rich and successful actor). He and his team also write fat jokes about Republicans (most notably Christie and Trump) that draw on stereotypes you can leverage against ANY fat person.

Liberals need to know better than to make arguments that rely on fat stigma, and they should know that, while internalized fat bias is a fact of life, it is a part of the personal-responsibility narrative that lets institutions off the hook and is demonstrably false. It’s hazardous to make jokes that acknowledge how we feel about fat and food, and yet not challenge it.

Happy Holidays

P.S.: I’m only upset because I care about you, Stephen.

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.

Losing Weight – Does It Mean Losing What Makes You Unique?

I don’t have to be as fat as I am, or get fatter than I am, in order to affirm my truth – the truth that I am queer, that I am sensitive, that I am an introvert. But I certainly do treat my fat body differently than I used to; I dress myself differently, I use more expressive body language, and I show more skin. I should have the right to change or maintain my body however I like. I cannot deny, however, that for most of the time I’ve ever lost weight intentionally that it was rooted at least in part in a sense of shame over my personality, my talents, needs, and desires. And much of the rhetoric I’ve used and I’ve heard other people use when it comes to the need to lose fat and maintain a thinner body is actually code for the real reason we all got so fat in the first place – an initial fear and grief over having been unacknowledged, mistreated, or ignored. Again, it isn’t necessary to be fat in order to reclaim our authenticity. There are some serious conversations to be had about mental and physical health. Exercise is objectively a good thing, and no one should have to feel like a prisoner in a cycle of food addiction or social isolation. We should have the right to experience a more social or physically active life if we want to. But the censorship and condemnation of fat bodies is a way to silence the hearts and minds of people of color, LGBTQA+ people, and people with psychological or physical impairments. We have to make sure that if we do try to become thinner, we aren’t losing more than our fat in the process.

Questions The Internet Will Not Give Me An Answer To

Why is it in virtually every “after” photo or video I’ve seen of males on the internet or TV commercial involve becoming more muscular and not simply being less fat? I feel like it’s sometimes true that women’s after pics show “toned” figures, but that for men it’s a given that they have to have visible muscle definition and laud their dedication to fitness regimens. Why?

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.