Tag: bias

“Turned to Food for Comfort” What Does It Really Mean?

Few expressions make me bristle more than someone saying they or someone else “turned to food for comfort” as the “reason” why a person is overweight. This has become a way to say that someone is fat because there’s something wrong with them and that wrong thing is their inability to control themselves around food …

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Rebel Wilson: Hollywood’s New Professional Fat Girl

Australian comedienne and actress Rebel Wilson debuted her new American sitcom last night. I had high hopes that “Super Fun Night” wouldn’t be an abysmal spew of fat jokes; Rebel seems far too talented for that and it really hasn’t been her style. The show, which she wrote and co-executive produced, accomplished what few comedies featuring …

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Weight Loss Reality TV Reaches a Shocking New Low “My Big Fat Revenge”

I wouldn’t have thought there could be a weight loss reality TV show more offensive and exploitative than Biggest Loser but “My Big Fat Revenge” on the Oxygen network is beyond comprehension. Overweight women tearfully recount stories of humiliation then plot revenge against their tormentors. The two women in the episode I watched seem to have …

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Have You Become Who You’ve Been Told You Are? Rejecting Weight Bias

I look at weight loss “support” groups periodically and I was quite shocked to see this comment from someone talking about women who had lost a significant amount of weight: I think that post-obese women—are stunted and the worst—because they’re stuck in the mindset/emotionally fucked where they became obese. So you have to be “emotionally …

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Why Can It Take a Lifetime to Lose Weight?

I would greatly prefer it if my brain would be less preoccupied with thoughts of doughnuts but it’s running its own show up there. I’ve often mused over what more I could accomplish if I did not have to devote any energy to trying to suppress all those food thoughts that bang around the ole …

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Even the Famous and Accomplished Struggle with Weight

What’s it like to be well-known, in the public eye and struggle with weight? I happened to see a couple items in the news today. A terrible boardwalk fire has New Jersey’s governor, Chris Christie, in the media spotlight. Here’s a photo from a current news story:  You may be aware the Governor had lap …

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Do You Call Yourself a Food Addict? Reconsidering Weight Bias

Do you call yourself a “food addict”? Does it seem that an awful lot of people would like to believe overweight is primarily a purely behavioral issue and those of us who have dealt with serious obesity must be out of control “addicts”? The Centers for Disease Control define “obese” (vs “overweight”) as having a …

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Being Mindful of the Fat Labels We Assign to Ourselves

Words are so very powerful. Just read Orwell’s 1984 for a chilling glimpse of a world so intensely controlled by propaganda, it’s possible to commit a “thoughtcrime.” How powerful are words in your life? Think for a moment about the fat labels you might apply to yourself. Do you call yourself a food addict? Do …

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Managing Our Weight: It’s NOT a Level Playing Field

My primary objective is to break down the paradigm that says if you are overweight, there’s “something wrong” with you and replace that with the fact that some of us are simply born with bodies that want to be larger and brains that want to think about food. It’s only logical! Consider that our culture …

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The Truth of My Mother and a Lifetime of “Think Like a Thin Person”

As I continue my month-long visit with my parents, I am learning more about their lives in their senior years. My mother remains as slim as she’s always been. We were talking yesterday about what a “hard time” her friends here in the community give her, especially at the pool. Despite being generally in their …

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