Tag: shame

Food on My Mind—And Off My Mind

Mornings are awesome for me. I never think of food in the morning. There’s nothing I could even want if you waved it under my nose. For my entire life, I’ve never been hungry when I first get up. I have to be up for a couple of hours. But the really amazing thing to …

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What the Fat Haters Say About You. No, Not That.

When I had my original weight loss blog back around 2004 to about 2006, I got these taunting anonymous emails from someone who claimed he knew me. He made a remark that lead me to think he was someone I’d known from Florida. I didn’t play along so he kept writing me and eventually admitted …

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Considering Why Lower Income & Food Insecurity Equals Higher Weight

Among the findings from his landmark analysis of the Midtown Manhattan Study on mental health in 1964, Dr. Albert “Mickey” Stunkard was the first to identify that lower income appears to correlate to a higher rate of obesity. Essentially, poor people are fatter which seems to present a paradox that food insecurity leads to weight …

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The Double Standard of Diet Choices and Weight Judgment

I visited friends this weekend; former neighbors of mine with whom I have developed a rather close and unlikely bond. Michael is the pastor of a Baptist church. He has worked extensively in the most impoverished corners of Africa, primarily to address systemic causes of AIDS and the impact of crushing poverty. Michael’s life experience has …

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The Vicious Weight Bias That Has to End

When I was a kid and I helped with the laundry, I thought my mother’s clothes seemed like doll clothes. My mother has always been a tiny little slip of a lady. Now that she’s in her seventies, I have tried to come up with strategies for boosting the nutritional content of the food she’s …

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Political and Moral Aspects of Weight Advocacy & Fat Acceptance

I navigate the concept of “fat acceptance” with reticence. It’s sure to incite emotional responses, sometimes even hostility. Weight has become intensely “politicized” and “emotionalized” in our society. How should we consider political and moral aspects of weight advocacy? Are there lines to be drawn? There are two primary issues to address, first of all …

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The Most Important Thing You’ll Ever Read About Obesity

If you deal with weight at all, you need to be following the writing of Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, founder of the Bariatric Medical Institute in Ottawa. Click to read his blog, Weighty Matters. Dr. Freedhoff writes quite a bit and I just read an article that appeared in in the Huffington Post. Dr. Freedhoff addresses …

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Who Knows the Most About You and Your Weight?

You know how good you feel when everything is under control? You’re caught up with things you need to do, nothing major is hanging over your head, your home is the way you like it, you’re getting stuff done. It’s great! Feeling in control brings peace to our minds and hearts; feeling out of control …

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Bioethicist Quack Promotes “Fat Shaming” to End Obesity

It’s pretty shocking to believe the source of this proposal. The co-founder of a non-profit center dedicated to bioethics research and public policy is promoting “fat shaming” as a solution to the obesity problem. And yes, he actually calls his proposal “Stigmatization.” In his paper “Obesity: Chasing an Elusive Epidemic” Daniel Callahan PhD, co-founder of …

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Yale Study Proves Fat Bias is Real DUH!

Yale University has done a study that focused on how a defendant’s weight affects jury verdict outcomes. The findings? Overweight female defendants were more likely to get a guilty verdict from male jurors. Women displayed less bias but the study found leaner men in particular were likely to judge a fat defendant harshly to the …

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