Abuse is better than being fat

This is a post I made over a year ago on my private LiveJournal.  Even though the news article is dated, it’s still very relevant today, as there are so many place equating “letting” a child be obese with child abuse. 

 

What is up with people saying that physical abuse is better than obesity for children? Judges are taking kids out of their homes and putting them into foster programs, where they might actually be … you know, REALLY abused, because their parents are “abusing” them by “letting” them be obese?

Where the hell is the sense in this? Children who are actually being physically and sexually abused, being tortured, can’t get taken out of their so-called homes because the parents know how to answer the questions CPS give them, but a child who is obese, but other wise in a very loving, caring, nurturing home is taken away from the parents?

How the hell did we as a society end up here? I saw a comment that made me sick to my stomach on another site (http://family.propeller.com/story/2007/0uck1/31/fat-police-put-children-on-abuse-list). The commenter said: Physical wounds heal, a 500lb man usually dies. I’d take my chances getting beat on. Excuse me? EXCUSE ME?!?!

Only a person who has never been abused, has never known anybody who was abused, and has no compassion could even think to say something like that. Wounds heal? What? So just suck up the physical abuse, fattie, because this is for your own good? Get “knocked into next week” by somebody because that’s SOOOOO much better than being obese? Where do people get ideas like this?

I responded over there. And didn’t say half the stuff I’m saying here, cuz I don’t want to get censured for my ranting.

But really, where do people get off? Oh, wait! I forgot! In this worldwide society of “OMGZZ!!!!!!!!1111111!!!11 Teh fatz r contagious! Teh fatz r unhealthy! Teh fatz r ugly! They r being fatz at me!!!!!!!!” it is SOOOO much more preferable to be anything BUT fat. Even starving your kids (in the name of not letting them be fatz!) is acceptable and not abuse.

Even beating them is better. Cuz yanno, wounds heal.

Ok, I want a ticket off this planet. I want to find someplace where sanity reigns, not this bullshit fear of everything that’s going on right now on Earth. I’m just waiting for somebody to say that “Teh Fatz” is a Terrorist Plot against America! And from some of these posts I’m reading, I don’t think that type of thinking is that far off. *rolls eyes*

I don’t know how to say it any plainer

Last Thursday, MiL and I went to her physical therapy appointment.  Driving there, we passed by the doctor’s office of the doctor who performed MiL’s niece’s lap band surgery. 

“I know you don’t want to diet, but what about doing something like a lap band?  It’s really helped Jessica* out.  She’s lost a lot of weight you know.”

I told MiL that I would never consider such a dangerous and invasive surgery as that.  And had to listen to all the reasons why it’s NOT dangerous and NOT invasive.  Besides all the other problems, just the fact that they are cutting holes in your body makes it dangerous and invasive.

Then I said I would not be put on a starvation diet.  MiL said it wasn’t a starvation diet, they just put this tube around your stomach, and inflate it so you can’t eat much.

She was serious.  She didn’t see that as a starvation diet.  She really didn’t understand when I told her it was a medically accepted means to starve oneself. 

We started talking about calories, and she told me that if I’d just eat 1000 calories a day I’d lose weight.  At this point, I’d had it.  I asked her why she wanted me to starve myself.  She said it wasn’t starving myself, and I told her about the Minnesota Experiment, and how the men were put on a “semi-starvation diet” of 1800 calories a day.  And then asked her if that was considered semi-starvation, and it only being about 600 calories less than what an active man should eat, then what she thought 1000 calories and half of my ‘recommended’ daily intake of calories would be considered.

She gave up on that tactic, and finally tried the “it’s not how much you eat, but what you eat anyways, when you eat so much butter and cream and…”  I cut her off mid-sentence. 

What I eat, and how much I eat is nobody’s business but mine.  I thought that, by engaging in dialogue, it’d help her to maybe open her mind to other ideas, but it turns out all she wants to do is continue to harass me about my weight.  I told her that she has no right putting her nose into what I eat, how much or little I eat, and that we would never talk about weight, nor my weight specifically, again.

Sometimes, in the face of so much criticism, it’s hard to keep things in focus.

I spent most of my life trying to fit in, conform, be skinny.  I spent my childhood in constant hunger because my mother believed one could never be too thin.  I spent most of my adulthood yoyo-ing up to the size I am now.  I have engaged in disordered behaviors towards food because of the criticism of people like my MiL. 

She has the right to her beliefs.  She has the right to think I’m unhealthy (because, yes, my health did get brought up in that conversation) despite the fact that all my lipids and tryglicerides and blood pressure and everything is normal, JUST because I’m fat.  I can’t change her mind about any of it.

But I’ll be damned if I’m going to let her make me feel defensive and have to justify actually living, and enjoying myself while doing it, either.

 

*Names changed to protect the innocent.

Here’s some real videos then…

I won’t take down the old one, even though I got taken in by it. Thank you to gg for the link to the site showing it to be a hoax.

Here, however, is some real dancing by “real” fat people.

And here:

The second video is Ragen Chastain who is a dancer and owns a dance studio. The first video is of one of her classes first performance. Here is her website, where she has links to more dancing and her blog.

And They Say Fat People are all Lazy and not Fit

Today’s Saturday Fluff comes as a You Tube video, with lots of thanks to my friend Miss Kitten.  The video really speaks for itself.   (Other than for me to say I want to be him when I grow up!)

Enjoy!

Self Care

In the last couple of months, I’ve read a few different people’s take on self-care (one at AngryGreyRainbows and another at Joy Discovered) about self care.  The concept of self care has been percolating in my brain since then.

I googled self care, and found there is a thing called “Self Care Deficit Theory”.  It was conceived by Dorothea Orem, a nurse in the middle of the last century, to help ascertain when a person actually needed nursing care.  She published her theory in 1971.

Within the theory of self-care, Orem identified three categories of self-care requisites: universal self-care requisites, developmental self-care requisites, and health-deviation self-care requisites. Universal self-care requisites are common to all human beings and include physiological and social interaction needs. For example, the sufficient intake of water, air, food and the maintenance of balance in all area of one’s life. Developmental self-care requisites are the needs that arise as the individual grows and develops. This is has to do with more specific events in an individual’s life, e.g. adjusting to the loss of a job, or adjusting to the birth of a newborn. Health-deviation self-care requisites result from the needs produced by disease or illness (DeLaune, Ladner 2002, p. 34).  (From here.)

Self care includes basic needs such as food, air, liquid. 

Such a simple concept, yet one that floored me.  People who want fat people to starve diet, are actually infringing on their ability to self care.

How does this tie into self esteem Friday? 

Today, I was talking with my psychologist about not eating when I’m hungry, not taking care of myself when I’m sick (until it become a major issue and has to be dealt with).  I said something to the order of “well, of course not, after all, I don’t count.”  Immediately as I said it, I knew that the idea came from the brain washing I’d lived through all my life.

My needs didn’t count.  My basic needs such as the need for food and appropriate medical care in the appropriate time, didn’t count.  This lack contributes still to my lack of self esteem, and manifests itself in not taking care of myself. 

When I’m in times of high self esteem, I have no problems with eating for fuel and enjoyment.  I have no problems with going to the doctor.  I have no problems with asking for help for something I’m struggling with.  It’s only when I’m going through times of low self esteem that my self care suffers.

To nourish the body and soul is an act of self care, and can be as simple as eating that avocado (or orange, or steak or ice cream), or as complex as taking a bath with richly scented bubbles, nice relaxing music on the CD or mp3 player and candles creating a warm and inviting time. 

I’m finding for myself, in order to do any type of self care, I have to believe I’m worthy of the time and energy involved to do it.  Even if it’s as simple as eating.

It Never Rains but it Pours

So much has been going on here.  First, the oven quit a few weeks back, then my computer died a week ago (still don’t have it fixed or a new one yet).  Then, this week that was supposed to be a laid back and relaxed week has turned into one packed with appointments.

Time to sit and think and write has been at a premium.

I did want to speak a little about Meghan McCain and Laura Ingraham thing, even though y’all may be sick of hearing it by now.

Meghan McCain writes: I have nothing to hide: I am a size 8 and fluctuated up to a size 10 during the campaign. It’s ridiculous even to have this conversation because I am not overweight in the least and have a natural body weight.

But even if I were overweight, it would be ridiculous. I expected substantive criticism from conservative pundits for my views, particularly my recent criticism of Ann Coulter. That is the nature of political discourse, and my intent was to generate discussion about the current problems facing the Republican Party. Unfortunately, even though Ingraham is more than 20 years older than I and has been a political pundit for longer, almost, than I have been alive, she responded in a form that was embarrassing to herself and to any woman listening to her radio program who was not a size 0.

There are really two things going on here.  First, Ms. McCain is correct:  at her being a size 8 to 10, this should not even be part of a conversation, and especially not part of a political conversation.   If the BMI really is an indicator of health and well being (which, I believe it’s not, but let’s just say for discussion it is), Miss McCain would be nicely in the “normal” range.   Which, by what everybody is trying to tell us, means she’s as healthy as she can be. 

That Laura Ingraham uses Meghan McCain’s weight as an insult would show that, gee, maybe it really isn’t about health at all.   

Secondly, Ms. McCain is correct again when she says that even if she really was fat, it should not be part of any conversation.

I think it telling when the supposed adults lower themselves to the point of finding the nastiest things they can think of to say, and all they could come up with is “OMG! U R FAT!”  I expect better from somebody who makes their living throwing words around.  I especially expect better from people who claim they are keeping an eye on, and reporting, politics and political trends.  If that truly is the case, then where does a person’s weight come into play at all? 

Or does being a size 8, or 10, or 26 automatically mean that a person’s brain stops working and they can no longer form an opinion, even if it’s different from one you hold?

Ms. McCain has shown more maturity in the way she responded to the insult than Ms. Ingraham has shown in both the original insult and in her response to Ms. McCain’s response.

New Aquarium

Okay, sort of new aquarium.

We have a 20 gallon tank, where we used to have only a 10 gallon tank.  In our 10 gallon tank, we had 5-6 neon tetras, a ghost shrimp (til the vacuum ate him), and an algae eater.  Now, we have double the room, so we can have double the fish.

At this point, we have 5 neon tetras, a ghost shrimp, two tequila sunrise guppies (both male), and a red fire dwarf  gourami.  We are planning on getting another ghost shrimp, an algae eater, and some other fish. 

We just don’t know what fish yet.  We were thinking of a ghost catfish, but I’ve heard they are hard to keep alive.  We also want some more color in there too.

What kind of fish do you like to watch or have in your aquariums (if you have one).  What would you recommend for a tank that is full of non-aggressive fish?  We really don’t have any idea of the types of fish that are out there, so are open to just about anything that will place nice with others.

Addendum on A Tale of Two Doctors

While I was there, the gynecologist gave me a prescription for metformin.  For me, this works in that I can tell differences when I’m on it, my migraines don’t come as often as when I’m not taking metformin, I don’t have to be careful about how many carbs I eat in a day (before metformin, eating over 50 carbs — way less than the 200+ recommended by the US Government — would give me migraines), and a few other benefits.

Two things happened about the script, one of which I forgot to mention when I wrote this up last night, one of which I only now found out, picking up the new script:

My former script (that had run out, hence the need for a new script) was for metformin 850 mg, 2 times a day.  So, 60 per month.  The script had only 30.  I was able to get that corrected before I left the office.  I figured everybody makes a mistake, and heavens know math is not my best subject, so I can give a person a break.  No matter how she was in the office.

I picked up my pills today, and the first thing I noticed, even through the bottle, was that they looked different.  Then I looked at what she called for:  metformin, extended release (all day release) 750 mg, two times a day.  She hadn’t even looked in my chart to see what I’d had before to see what to prescribe.  And, I’ve had the ER tabs before, they don’t work as well for me as the regular metformin does.

She is definately fired.

A Tale of Two Doctors

(A digression of the normal Friday Series.)

Thursday I went to two doctor appointments; my GP and my OB/GYN.  I went for entirely different reasons.  I went to the GP because I needed a “get out of jury duty” pass (because my migraines have gotten to the point of having them two or three times a month, and I have to be in bed until they finally go away), a new order for lab work, and some medicine for a rash.  The OB/GYN visit was my normal “well woman” visit.

I had the GP appointment first.  My regular doctor (which I loved so much in October last year) wasn’t able to see me, and since the letter documenting my migraines was time sensitive, I took a chance with another doctor at the practice.  She was just as great as my regular doctor.  I was weighed in a separate room away from everybody, then went into the examining room.  My blood pressure was taken (120/88), and the reason for my visit ascertained again.  I waited a few minutes for the Doctor to come in, and when she did, she introduced herself.  We talked about my need for a script for my skin problem, my need for the doctor’s note excusing me from jury duty, and how if I’d fasted before coming in today, she could have done the blood draw right then for my labs.  (I’d had a banana for breakfast, so no blood draw.)

It was a very laid back appointment.  She took the time to listen to me, figure out what I needed, and we proceeded from there.  I was not chastised for my weight, nor for my blood pressure.  I left there feeling good about this other doctor, and feeling like I wouldn’t have a problem with seeing her for something major should my doctor not be available.

After that, I had my visit with my OB/GYN.  This was not my first visit with her.  We’ve had at least 6 visits in the past (when I had a cancer scare, when we were trying to figure out exactly what was wrong with me, and last year’s well woman exam). 

I was called in, and weighed on the scale in the room (also away from everybody else).  The nurse asked how tall I was, and I answered (5’2″).  Then my blood pressure was taken (122/84).  Then I was left to get ready for the doctor.  As soon as she came in, she started in on my weight, and my BMI.  See, I had gained 30 pounds in a year and 4 months (since I’d last been in to see her).  My BMI is now 47. 

She wrote that down on a paper printed with the fields Height, Weight, BMI, <18.5 underweight/18.5-24.9 normal/25-29.9 overweight/>=30 obese, Blood Pressure, and circled >=30 obese.  (Like I don’t know I’m obese?)

Then I got a lecture on how I need to lose weight because of my “high” blood pressure.  Yes, at 122/84, she considers me to have high blood pressure, and in fact, so high that my migraines may be caused by it.  In talking to me about my “high” blood pressure, she didn’t ask me if I’ve been stressed lately (I have), if I’ve been sleeping well (I haven’t), if I’ve changed my diet at all (I haven’t, except for eating more crock pot foods when the oven was dead).  In lecturing me about my fat, she didn’t ask what changed in the past year, if there has been any major changes in my activity levels (there has) and why (knee surgery and subsequent relearning how to walk through PT, being on low exercise allowance by my surgeon, went from walking 2+ miles a day with my job to not walking at all due to surgery and recovery for approximately 8 months).

Other than scolding me about my weight and informing me about how bad for my health my weight is (with no other information but the weight, BMI, and blood pressure reading), she spent more time talking to me about the book I was reading (Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere) than talking about my health.

I left there feeling quite a bit demoralized, and more than a little bit angry.

I didn’t say anything to her at the time.  I was shocked at this new behavior from her.  Like I said, I’ve seen her at least 6 times in the past two years, and this is the first time she’s ever done this.  She never even so much as mentioned BMI before, much less write out what mine is and circle obese.  I honestly don’t know if she’s drunk the cool-aid or if she was always like this, but there was so much going on in the first few months she was concentrating on my real problems, so that left things like BMI on the back burner.

I will not be going back to her again.  My GP office does yearly well woman exams, and I think keeping all of my healthcare (or as much as I can, the GP can’t do nuerological exams for my migraines) with one practice is a good idea.  Because then, when they look at me and say, “Your x is elevated, what is changed in your life?” I know they are really looking at actual health indicators.

Not, you know, using short cuts to decide if I’m healthy or not.  Because you can tell from a BMI number and a “high” blood pressure of 122/84.

Another “Hungry” Post

Last month, I posted about how ignoring the natural body signals (IE, being hungry) can be detrimental.  I said that I usually don’t feel hungry because I got so used to ignoring it.

Today I’m having an opposite problem.  Last night, I started having a “body memory” about being ravenous.  The trigger to this doesn’t matter, but it’s here now.  I associate it with “phantom pain” in that, while it’s not a missing limb (or whatever), it’s still something that has no basis in physical reality.  In other words, I’m not starving. 

However, I’m finding myself going back to old coping mechanisms.  I’m doing my best to ignore it.  To think about other things.  To wait one half hour before eating (and then waiting another half hour).  I’m sure that some of the feeling of being hungry is physical.  I’ve only had a banana for breakfast today (instead of my usual yogurt/banana/nuts/frozen fruit ‘soup’).  And I only had the banana because I needed to eat something before taking my medicine. 

Last night, I woke up in the middle of the night ravenous.  Like I used to do when I was a child.  Instead of being an adult and getting up and getting a snack, I did what I could to negate the hunger without feeding it.  I drank a huge glass of water.  A half hour later when I was still ravenous, I drank another. 

One thing about learning dysfunctional coping mechanisms, is that, even when one works hard to get rid of them, it’s so easy to fall into old behavior patterns. 

The good news (for me) is that I’m recognizing what’s happening.  There’s been times in the past where I’ve not even recognized what was going on.  The bad news, is that I don’t know what to do about it.  With body memories, I usually just have to ride them out.  If I can manage to do that without falling back into old coping patterns, it’ll be a good thing.

This, what’s going on right now, just underscores for me how dangerous this whole obesity epipanic is.   I’ve done enough psychological work on myself to realize what’s happening, and why I need to resist it.  And I still fall into the old coping behaviors so easily.   While you can’t teach eating disorders, you can teach, and ingrain, dysfunctional coping mechanisms.

We have a whole culture that’s doing this to people.  Telling them that if they are hungry they should just do this and that and the other thing.  That there’s no way they can be hungry because they just ate four hours ago (or however long it was).  And people are listening and trying to starve themselves, eventually ending up with real health concerns because they are starving themselves.

I’m one of the luckier ones, in that I am recognizing what’s happening.  I’m still trying to figure out what to do (and yes, I know I need to start by eating more than one banana), but at least I know what’s happening.  There’s a lot of people out there who have swallowed the obesity epipanic and don’t know what’s happening.  And worse, think they are a failure when they do, finally, give in to what their body is saying and feed themselves.