...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Ed
For a very, very long time I've been blogging about lazy editorials in local papers. I've found that columnists and those invited to contribute often just spout the same old tripe about fat without any new insights - like, did you know that we might take up two seats on airplanes? I mean, who knew right?
Over the past year I realized that a great way to fight back against this ignorance was for people to write editorials and letters to the editors of said local papers. Frankly, I read blog posts on a weekly basis that are far and away better than the anti-fat editorials. I've promoted this idea as much as possible as it's important to move our message beyond the blog and into the real world.
Thus, it's great to see BFBer DebraSY's articles on body image in the Kansas City Star. Her latest focuses on the problems with Wii Fit, the Nintendo game that encourages children to do whatever exercise necessary to not Be Fat.
Debra's efforts should be applauded; even if you feel she's not promoting super hardcore fat lib, it's hard to argue against her opening the door through promoting and encouraging body diversity. Good stuff.
CNN Covers Wellness Programs | The Shape of Things to Come
Posted by paul on July 2, 2008
This is an excellent point and a great idea. So many of the comments are insightful and articulately stated, here and on so many other Fatosphere blogs. Is it possible to have a separate section for fat-positive editorials on BFB?
By the way, Paul, great AYWKUBTTOD reference.
No joke, I was like....whoa, he pulled that off!
And FTR, I totally agree.
It continues with weight-loss propaganda every time a player performs a “Body Test,” even if the player has entered a weight-loss goal of “no change.”
Yeah...coercive much?
Debra's editorials are always solidly HAES, and well-written, which I appreciate.
On the issue of the Wii Fit - I recently bought this for my partner, who loves video games and wanted it badly. I'd read that the board involved had a weight limit of 350 (not enough for me) but I figured hey, if I wanted to take a chance of breaking the board by using it, that was my perogative, right? WRONG.
While my (substantially smaller than me) partner registered her Wii and did the body test (and was highly, highly annoyed that she was compelled to put in a weight loss goal and that all of the little comments are directed toward weight loss), I can't even try to join in. Apparently, if you exceed the Wii Fit weight limit, the damn thing won't even let you register your Mii or even attempt to participate in any of the games/exercises!
The freaking program steals my Mii from the plaza, though, and peppers me here and there in the crowd to cheer and umpire and coach throughout the games. I can watch, but not play! How does that help me meet MY fitness goals????
You can play, just not as your mii. You can use her profile to play and it will let you, it will note the weight change but that will not affect the game at all. If you want to play as your mii I suggest just getting her to stand on the board for the initial weigh in. I have had a 450 pound friend use my mii and he had no problems at all playing any of the games.
I'm sorry, but you have reached the Nintendo-defined level of "too fat to exercise."
Better luck next time.
/sarcasm
DUH!! Yah know, this just DID NOT occur to me. The editorial pages. And I'm not using them because? . . . . .
Right. Tripping off now to peruse the EdPage guidelines over at some of our more intensely phobic mainstream news orgs.
Everything great and worthwhile in human life is an accumulation of hundreds
and sometimes thousands of tiny efforts and sacrifices that nobody ever
sees or appreciates. - Law of Accumulation
I contemplated buying one of those, so I could work on flexibility and such. But from what I've read on the blogs - how it's always nagging you and in some cases outright insulting you - no thanks.
When it comes to beating myself up for not being "good enough," I've been there, done that, wore out the t-shirt. I think I'll stick to my yoga dvds for flexibility. At least Patricia Weldon doesn't sneer at me, "Hey, fatty, you haven't played me in 2 weeks. What's up with that?"
Why can't they make a flexibility/strength trainer with only positive messages? Like "You bent farther than you did two weeks ago - good job!" or "Wow, you can 25 reps of that exercise now - you're really getting strong!" I suspect there are many, many people in the U.S. who have too much of a history of being yelled at and belittled when it comes to physical exercise, and they don't need some robot machine doing it to them, too.
Great article!!
Why not just let kids have fun with Wii and get exercise through the dance/sports games? They're getting the exercise--isn't that what's important? Kids shouldn't be worrying about their appearance or BMI. That's just ridiculous, not to mention BORING.
Here's a brilliant Wii Fit satire:
Learning To Love The WII Fit