"Nothing’s so attractive as the forbidden. If HAES [intuitive eating] ever catches on, people might start to notice that a great deal of junk food tastes like ass."
~Kate Harding (via loniemc)
"We’re raising a generation of kids to see fat as the ultimate failure and the ultimate sin."
~Madame Thursday (via loniemc)
"
I have seen research on and by oppressed populations denied with statements insisting such research is irrelevant to the field or that it does not agree with a body of previously published research. These types of arguments are used to justify not publishing such statistics, then the privileged use a lack of such statistics to justify ignoring further research on the topic.
The argument that we need statistics and numbers is just another way to derail any conversation on oppression.
"~Lonie McMichael, from the upcoming book The Unloved Child: Collateral Damage in the War on Obesity (via loniemc)
Oppression and research
Those who are privileged want numbers and statistics — and they must be stats produced by the privileged. If the numbers have been produced by oppressed, then they are “biased” (as if the privileged have no bias).
For a woman (People of Color, fat, people who are disabled, etc.) to do research on…
you think i need to exercise? but i am exercising… my right to tell you to mind your own business and stop commenting on my body.
(via bumsquash)
"Yes, obesity is to blame for all the evils of modern life, except somehow, weirdly, it is not killing people enough. In fact that’s why there are all these fat people around. They just won’t die."
Katherine Flegal, PhD, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, quoted in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/weekinreview/29kolata.html?_r=0)
As if this isn’t hard enough
On May 13 an MRI found 20 tumors in my husbands brain. On May 15 he could barely breathe and was in a lot of pain. A CT scan that day revealed he had a softball-sized tumor in his lung, tumors in his other lung, his liver and possibly his bones. On our way home from the imaging center our primary care doc called and told us to turn around and get to the hospital right away. My husband was admitted and they promptly removed more than a pint of fluid from his lungs, which helped him breathe better. We were there for 6 days while they performed a bronchoscopy, did more scans, gave him drugs to stop his brain from swelling and administered emergency chemo.
Today I got a letter from Anthem Blue Cross regarding his hospital stay:
"Coverage for the requested service is denied because the service does not meet the criteria for “medical necessity” under your description of benefits. To assist our Medical Director in making this decision, we have put a process in place to send all information about the service to a clinical reviewer with appropriate credentials. Based on their opinion, we have determined that covered for the requested service is denied. Our Medical Reviewer Layma Jarjour MD has determined we cannot approve your hospital stay for cancer. We do not have enough facts to show that it was medically necessary. "
Anthem is owned by WellPoint. Did you know Wellpoint CEO Joseph Swedish earned almost $17 million during his first year on the job? Now you know how they can afford to pay him.
(via madamethursday)
"As a society we tend to medicalize that which we find morally unacceptable"
~ Dr. Tina Moffat (2010), The ‘Childhood Obesity Epidemic’ (via loniemc)
"Our society has bought into the idea of fat being controllable and associated with ill-health. Believing this way, when the majority of people see someone who is fat and disabled or fat and sick, they often blame the fat. In reality, the ailment may not be associated with the fat at all or may actually be causing the fat. Given that our bodies often respond to pain, illness and stress by gaining weight, fat being caused by the illness is often the case. The very people who need help and compassion are being abused in the name of health."
~From the upcoming book The Unloved Child: Collateral Damage in the War on Obesity by Lonie McMichael, author of Talking Fat and Acceptable Prejudice? (via loniemc)
"Self-loathing is not a fucking character-builder. It doesn’t make you stronger. It doesn’t make you better. It’s just an ever-deepening, creepy-ass trap; a trap that is a huge moneymaker for corporations that do not have and never will have good intentions. You’re not disgusting. You’re not freakish. You’re not ugly. And you’re never going to be perfect. And holy shit, that is so okay."
Jane on “Self-loathing coated in butter” http://intellectualbabe.blogspot.com/2009/05/self-loathing-coated-in-butter.html (via loniemc)