Thread: Fat Shaming

Originally Posted by Alissa_Sal

I think someone should embroider "Down with Booze Shaming" on a pillow.

Ooh ooh! I'll do it. I'm very crafty

We will need pictures, please.

This thread was bothering me last night, and I want to sincerely apologize if I made anyone feel badly for how they feel about their own body. If I did that it was not intentional, but it WAS wrong of me, and I am sorry. I wasn't trying to, but Bunnyfufu is right and I should approach this issue with more sensitivity and less passion. I'm like one of those annoying ex smoker people who act like smoking is the worst thing ever just because they don't do it anymore ~ and because I guess I had to deal with this so intensely so young I forget how probably much of the world deals with this on a much less intense yet long term basis ~ Both experiences are difficult and just because I quit doing something doesn't mean that I shouldn't accept that my experience is not and will not (and should not!) be everyones.

So I apologize.

Thank you Melissa, that is very...kind...for lack of a better term.

I thought this was interesting. Just thought I'd share.

Video: How the food industry is deceiving you with Peter Jennings | Transition Now

Videos at the link.

?In 2004, the late, great Peter Jennings pulled no punches with his insightful and hard-hitting five-part series How the Food Industry is Deceiving You. In it, Jennings took a critical look at how the rapid rise of obesity in America is directly connected to the unholy alliance between the food industry and our government. As just one of the many examples of underhanded dealings, Jennings points to agricultural subsidy programs and shows how the lion?s share of subsidy dollars go to produce sugars and fats. The expos? also highlights how, despite the insanely large amounts of money spent on marketing unhealthy foods (in 2002, the food industry spent $34 billion on marketing? $12 billion of which was aimed at children), the food industry still insists that the choice is yours, and that obesity is most likely tied to people?s unwillingness to exercise (Michael F. Jacobson stops in to disprove that myth).
The series ends with a very somber Jennings looking right into the camera, comparing the food industry today with the tobacco industry 30 years ago. He claimed that by publicizing the dangers of smoking, the government successfully reduced national smoking rates. The message hits hard?at the time of filming, Jennings was dying of smoking-induced lung cancer (he passed away in 2005). He then called for the government to step up and educate the public about healthy eating.
Today, nearly seven years after Jennings? plea, there is still much to be done to divorce the partnership between Big Ag and Big Gov. The good news is that other journalists have followed in Jennings? footsteps. In 2010, Katie Couric sat down with industrial food critics former FDA Commissioner Dr. David Kessler and Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser in her report Americans and Food, which took a compelling look at antibiotic abuse in industrial meat production, genetically modified organisms, high fructose corn syrup, growth hormones in dairy cows and more.? ? Jennifer Bunnin

Education is a powerful tool. I haven't eaten fast food since I read Fast Food Nation many years ago. A friend of mine who was always an animal lover saw some videos about how the animals are treated at slaughterhouses and such and is now a pescetarian. ("You can't un-see it," she told me.)

Education is key. Shaming, not so much. The food manufacturers should be ashamed, not the people who are struggling with weight.

I guess the question is, is the obesity problem because people struggle, or is it because they just don't realize what they're really eating? It's like the Cool Whip thing that came up earlier.

I bake a lot, and my particular niche (although I like to make fun desserts too) is healthy baking. For me, that means using less refined sugars or honey, wheat-based flours, little to no butter or oil (although oil is healthy in the right quantities), baking with yogurt, applesauce, flax, pureed fruit, etc. I go through a lot of sites that claim to have healthy recipes and a lot of them specify cake mixes, Cool Whip, artificial sweeteners, etc. I don't consider those things healthy. We have a lot to learn, myself included.

I grew up in a home with a Mom who made all of our meals from scratch. NOT as some agenda, just because it was what HER Mom did, so it was what she knew. I feel very lucky to have grown up that way ~ I very much believe that your taste preferences start forming even in the womb ~ and I really feel for people who have to unlearn decades of unhealthy eating as I think that it can be as hard as quitting smoking or doing drugs.

Education also needs to include what the large amount of pharmaceuticals we take in a society does to our obesity rate. The more drugs that are introduced the higher we will see the rate climb.

Curious about what you mean ~ could you elaborate?

A lot of prescription meds, especially in the psychotropic class, can cause weight gain. They are also finding a lot of anti-histamines are causing food obsession.
We also have a lot of antibiotics in our foods, that causes bacteria in the gut to have issues, which can change our metabolism.

Basically, the more meds we take in (voluntarily or through food) changes the way our bodies process everything