On The Whole

The New York Times on fat acceptance & Health At Every Size

Robin Marantz Henig of the New York Times has an excellent article in today's Times magazine section on "Losing the Weight Stigma."

The article critiques the "no-holds-barred war on obesity" that is the "public-health crusade of the moment." It even points out that fat acceptance activists "deliberately use the word 'fat' as a way to reclaim it, much the way some gay rights activists use the word 'queer.'"

(I like to encourage people -- a little tongue-in-cheek -- to count the letters in "FAT" so they can see it's not a four-letter word. The word "obesity" is the real obscenity -- especially in the way it's used in contemporary medicine -- because it pathologizes people simply because of their weight, size or body composition. The Latin root of "obesity" also implies "excessive" eating, which is not the case in all fat people AND is true of some lean people.)

Henig mentions the recent Archives of Internal Medicine study reporting that half of "overweight" and one-third of "obese" adults had normal blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides, and blood sugar. She also gives a heads-up to Linda Bacon's new book Health At Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight, as well as Bacon's research supporting HAES.

Henig even understands that mainstream programs like Weight Watchers are co-opting Health At Every Size & size acceptance terminology without walking the talk -- while Weight Watchers, for instance, claims it isn't a diet (Oh, really? Since when?), "it still tracks weight loss down to the decimal point."

There's more, so by all means check it out yourself here.

What if no one were ignorant, an idiot, or incapable of critical thinking?

Then we wouldn't have articles like this, in which all the country's ills -- and much of the world's, including, I kid you not, global warming -- is blamed on fat people. And in which the author fantasizes -- err, speculates -- on how better off everyone and everything, from the economy to Earth itself, would be if there were no fat people.

Imagine substituting any other population or group of people in the title phrase of Shirley Skeel's MSN Finance article:

"What if there were no more black people?"
"What if there were no more Jews?" 

Would MSN Finance publish an article to that effect? Or are they just interested in promoting some kind of bariatric "final solution"?

The article is so full of mistakes, misconceptions and logical errors that it would take me hours to go through them, and I really don't care to spend the time on such gallingly poor journalism. Besides, others have already addressed some of the more salient (and egregious) claims: see Cthulhu's Cafeteria and LiveJournal, with possibly the best response being men_in_full's "Love letter to a fat man".

Contemporary societal, medical and media hysteria about fat people is fueling increases in discrimination toward fat people as well as eating disorders. As Kathleen Phalen Tomaselli writes in an article at Amednews.com:

In the war on obesity, thinness has become the hallmark of success. "There's this continued glorifying of unhealthy and unnatural images," says Harry A. Brandt, MD, a psychiatrist and medical director of the Center for Eating Disorders at the Sheppard Pratt Health System in Baltimore.

As a result,

The face of anorexia is changing, says Brenda Woods, MD, a family physician and director of primary care medicine at Remuda Ranch in Wickenburg, AZ, an inpatient and residential treatment facility for women and girls, with facilities in Virginia and Arizona...."We've had a 400% increase in calls by women older than 40 and a 700% increase in the child population, age 7 and 8."

Keep in mind that anorexia nervosa has the highest fatality rate of any psychiatric illness.

Fortunately some physicians are recognizing "the importance of people being comfortable in their own bodies and realizing what is overweight for one person might not be for another." For instance, Brandt says,

"Maybe you are at your body's normal weight. Maybe you have the genetics to be large. Discrimination against the obese drives people to change, and we encourage people to engage in unhealthy behaviors. [Like chronic dieting, yo-yo weight loss and regain (aka weight cycling), eating disorders, and mutilation in the form of bariatric surgery.] Genetics loads the gun, and society pulls the trigger. [Emphases and bracketed comments mine.]

Shirley Skeel and MSN Finance to fat people: Bang!

Gas prices in Nashville

Spotted at the Hillsboro Village Shell station around twilight tonight.

Bully on the block?

Book publishers and authors are abuzz with the news that representatives of online retailer Amazon.com have been approaching high-volume publishers utilizing the print-on-demand services of Lightning Source, Inc. (LSI) to get them to set up their titles for printing by Amazon.com's own printing company, BookSurge, or have the "Buy" buttons removed from their books' listings at Amazon.

PublishAmerica 's March 27, 2008 press release confirms that Amazon.com gave the company an "ultimatum, demanding the right to print" its almost 30,000 titles or else Amazon.com "will retaliate by disabling the 'Buy' button on all of its PublishAmerica listings."

In other words: Let us print your books --and collect more money from you -- or we won't sell your books any more.

The "Buy" buttons to many if not all PublishAmerica books listed on Amazon.com disappeared late this week.

PublishAmerica says it "will not comply with Amazon's ultimatum, and will not allow that company to dictate who will print PublishAmerica's books, and at what conditions."

Angela Hoy of Booklocker broke the Amazon.com story publicly yesterday in her Writers Weekly e-newsletter. Click here to read that article and find links to further reportage, including articles in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Publisher's Weekly.

Some in the industry are referring to it as an "offer you can't refuse." Terms like "strongarm tactics" and "bullying" are also being used -- and, admittedly, come to my mind.

The threat carries punch especially for small publishers and subsidy publishers (the latter including companies like  iUniverse/Authorhouse , Lulu, and Booklocker) because Amazon.com is the biggest online book retailer, and it's difficult for small publishers and subsidy publishers to get their books into brick-and-mortar bookstores.

Print-on-demand (and short-run digital printing) is a relatively new development in the publishing industry, but it has boomed in the past few years. Small publishers often use print-on-demand and short-run digital printing by companies such as LSI to cut down on the costs of printing and storing inventory. Instead of printing thousands of books at a time (for thousands of dollars) and paying to store them until sold -- and destroying or remaindering them if not sold -- print-on-demand technology allows printing of only one copy of a book at time, if desired, which means a book need not be printed until it is sold/ordered.

More than 50 percent of all academic presses utilize print-on-demand printing, according to the Wall Street Journal. Even the big commercial publishing houses use print-on-demand technology to print "backlist" titles.

While several printing companies offer print-on-demand services, LSI is the largest. It's attractive to publishers largely because of its affiliation with Ingram, the large book wholesaler.

It's difficult for small publishers (and subsidy publishers, no matter what their size) to get their books carried by Ingram or other wholesalers or distributors. But most bookstores want to buy books wholesale through Ingram or another wholesaler or distributor, not directly from publishers. They want to place one order for a shipment of books, not hundreds of orders from hundreds of different publishers.

Utilizing LSI for printing allows small publishers (as well as subsidy publishers and academic presses) to get their books listed for sale through Ingram, which makes the books available for sale through online retailers as well as (usually through special-order) brick-and-mortar stores. Even the "big boy" traditional commercial publishers often use LSI for "backlist," slower selling books to keep them in print without having to maintain piles of such books in inventory. 

Pearlsong Press, the publishing company I founded in 2003, uses LSI as our printer. We haven't been approached by Amazon.com (yet?) about switching to BookSurge because we're small potatoes, with 13 titles in print and 2 more being published in April and May. (But we're very tasty small potatoes, I might add.:-) Subsidy publishers like iUniverse/Authorhouse and Lulu have thousands of titles in print. Booklocker alone has 1,500.

What does this mean, exactly, for publishers? And authors? And readers?

There are costs in time and money to set up books for printing at BookSurge as well as at LSI. BookSurge uses a different file format than LSI, so existing book files would have to be reformatted to their specifications. Book interiors and book covers are separate files, so each title would have 2 files needing reformatting. PublishAmerica, for instance, would have to reformat almost 60,000 files to set up all its titles for printing by BookSurge.

Such reformatting would take time, attention and money away from preparing new books for publication. That will affect authors as well as readers -- fewer books accepted for publication, fewer new books being published. Not to mention less income for publishers (and smaller royalties for authors) as sales decline during the interim in which publishing energy is directed toward meeting BookSurge's specs and Amazon.com's demands.

New titles will incur a setup fee. BookSurge also demands a higher discount from publishers than LSI does, so publishers will make less money from each book printed and sold through  BookSurge/Amazon.com...unless they raise the price of said books.

I don't know yet how this will affect Pearlsong Press or other small publishers who use LSI for book printing but aren't subsidy publishers. (Subsidy publishers -- aka "vanity presses" -- are publishers that charge authors to publish their books. Traditional publishers, whether they use print-on-demand technology or not, don't charge authors for publication. It should be noted that PublishAmerica considers itself a traditional publisher, but most in the industry consider it a type of subsidy press.)

I do know, though, that I don't like the way Amazon.com is reportedly doing business. (Even if its representative is quoted in the WSJ as claiming they're just trying to "better serve" their "customers and authors.")

This small potato isn't interested in being masticated by a corporate behemoth more interested in making money than ensuring the viability of independent presses.

And I personally am planning to cease making any purchases from Amazon.com until -- or unless -- the company quits its bullying.

In the meantime, Pearlsong Press books ARE still available for sale at Amazon.com....but also at BarnesandNoble.com (which also offers free shipping options, by the way), and the independent bookseller Powells.com, as well as other retailers. And you can also, of course, purchase our books directly from us -- many of them autographed -- via our website (www.pearlsong.com).

Make history in Massachusetts!

The Massachusetts state legislature is considering adopting a height/weight anti-discrimination law (H. 1844). Fat rights/body liberation activist Marilyn Wann (author of Fat!So? Because You Don't Have to Apologize for Your Size) is calling on people for assistance.

Please support this much-needed civil rights law. People of all sizes face discrimination based on body size. It's real. It's not okay. Without a law, we have no protection. The only other places to offer such a law: San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Washington, D.C., Madison, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

You want to help make history?

If you live in Massachusetts:

1. Call your state Representative: 617-722-2000 (ask to be directed based on your zip  code). Ask how the Rep. will vote for H. 1844, how they will support this historic     legislation.

2. Come to the crucial hearing! Tell your story!
    Tuesday, March 25, 2 p.m.
    State House, room A-2, in Boston

If you don't live in Massachusetts, please forward this info to anyone you know who does.

For questions, contact Marilyn Wann: marilyn @ fatso.com.

Thank you!

When candy is outlawed, only outlaws will have candy

The Associated Press has reported that a New Haven, CT eighth-grade honors student has been suspended from school, stripped of his class vice-presidency and forbidden from attending an honors student dinner because he bought a bag a candy at school from another student.

The school district has barred "candy sales and fundraisers" in schools since 2003 as part of their "school wellness policy." (No doubt motivated by desires to curb the galloping childhood "obesity epidemic," although somewhat refreshingly the article does not mention weight. Which leads me to suspect the honors student wasn't fat -- because if he'd strayed from the thin standard/ideal, that probably would have been mentioned.

When the first U.S. schools started banning candy a few years ago, the media reported thriving black markets sprang up immediately, with some kids earning $200 a week buying candy in bulk and reselling it to classmates.

Apparently no one in any of these schools' governing boards has been familiar with the concept of "forbidden fruit"....or thinks there are better issues on which attention might be focused.

UK & US scientists dispute "obesity epidemic" health claims

An Associated Press article datelined London contains some refreshingly sane commentary on "obesity" fearmongering, although the accompanying photo of headless torso dude and "poison pill" ending necessitate the usual "read at your own risk" advisory for "obesity" related journalism.

A sample:

"The obesity epidemic has absolutely been exaggerated," said Dr. Vincent Marks, emeritus professor of clinical biochemistry at the University of Surrey.

Marks [and others] claim that the data about the dangers of obesity are mixed and there is little proof that being fat causes problems including high blood pressure, heart disease and cancer.

...."There's no good causal connection," said Eric Oliver, author of Fat Politics and a political science professor at the University of Chicago.

Blaming obesity for diabetes and heart attacks, Oliver says, is like blaming lung cancer on bad breath rather than on smoking.

But wait -- there's more!

Some obesity skeptics question the motives of experts who make dire predictions about obesity.

With millions of dollars for obesity researchers, an industry of anti-fat drugs, and a boom in the number of doctors offering surgeries like stomach-stapling, the more fat people there are, the more profits there will be in selling them solutions.

Or purported solutions.

The article also reports that the World Health Organization (WHO) categorized body mass index (BMI) scores as "overweight" and "obese" based upon the results of what appeared to be an "independent expert committee convened by WHO."

Yet the 1997 Geneva consultation was held jointly with the International Obesity Task Force, an advocacy group whose self-described mission is "to inform the world about the urgency of the (obesity) problem."

According to the task force's most recent available annual report, more than 70 percent of their funding came from Abbott Laboratories and F. Hoffman La-Roche, companies which make top-selling anti-fat pills.

The task force remains one of Europe's most influential obesity advocacy groups and continues to work closely with WHO.

...."There's not a lot of money in trying to debunk obesity, but a huge amount in making sure it stays a big problem," said Patrick Basham, a professor of health care policy at Johns Hopkins University. [Emphases mine.]

Unfortunately the article ends with a typical "even if some fat is OK, too much is bad" slap at supersize individuals and a caution attributed to Oliver that "morbidly obese people...should be worried."

It's strange to me that Oliver would be quoted as cautioning "morbidly obese" people, since his own book reports the term "morbid obesity" was invented by a physician in the 1950s in efforts to justify his brand of bariatric ("weight-loss") surgery. In other words, "morbid obesity" originated as a marketing (or, rather, fearmongering) term, not as a medical concept.

Not all supersize people have health problems. Of those who do, how many of them can be attributed to the weight-loss "treatments" they may have been subjected to since childhood -- in some cases, infancy -- and body-stressing yo-yo weight loss/regain?

Supersize people shouldn't "worry" about their weight any more than anyone else.

More Southern madness

The great (?) state of Georgia has taken a break from attempts to extend its northern border into Tennessee in order to consider a bill mandating twice-yearly weighing and measuring of school children and using their average Body Mass Index (BMI) to indicate their health.

Georgia Senate Bill 506, or the "Student Health and Physical Education [SHAPE] Act," would take effect in the 2008-2009 school year, if passed. As of this evening the senate website indicates the bill is being read a second time, but Atlanta's WGCL-TV news website reports the senate passed the bill today.

The WGCL-TV news website reports that the "childhood obesity bill" was passed despite the objections of state Sen. Preston Smith, "who argued it would embarrass children who are already bullied about their weight." 13 senators voted against the bill.

Such "childhood obesity" initiatives are more likely to foster body shame and eating disorders among children than produce any positive health benefits.

The bill was proposed by state Sen. Joseph Carter (an attorney), and co-sponsored by five other senators whose backgrounds include law, medicine, banking, engineering and business.

I Love Emma Thompson

A British news/gossip source reports English actress Emma Thompson threatened to withdraw from a film if the production company forced a co-starring actress to lose weight.

Miramax Films apparently capitulated, and the remake of Brideshead Revisited will feature Diana Quick at her original weight (whatever that was).

Health At Every Size radio show on Mississippi HB 282

Yesterday's Health At Every Size radio show focused on the ban-fat-people-from-restaurants insanity of Mississippi House Bill 282, with Mississippi- (and food- and restaurant-) themed music.

I've just uploaded the mp3 recording of the show.

Click here for the post about the show with link to the archived recording, or just go directly to the recording here.