Fatosphere in Wired
BFBer Bilt4Comfrt noted in the Forums that Wired magazine features "fatosphere" in their latest Jargon Watch column. Their definition, however, sucks:
Fatosphere n. A blogosphere of the obese, by the obese, for the obese. Often designated "no-diet zones," fatosphere blogs seek to counter medical claims that obesity is a health epidemic.
So how would you define it?
(PS to all media folks out there: there's rumors on the internets that suggest I came up with the term "fatosphere". I did not. Thanks.)
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Posted by paul on April 4, 2008
I wouldn't use the word 'obese' for a start, and I wish people would realise how perjorative it is, and the extent to which it helps reinforce negative attitudes toward and about fat people.
How about "a loosely interconnected network of individual blogs, homepages and activism sites conceived with the purpose of countering weight-based discrimination through challenging social and medical misconceptions about fat people"?
Richie, I think you won. Nice job!
Wow, Richie, that definition totally rocks!
What Richie said + Thin allies for people of all sizes like myself included. Yay! lol
Why would we need to add "thin allies" when there's no mention of activists' size in Richie's definition?
Yup, Ritchie's definition covers everyone in the FA/SA movement regardless of size and I agree it ROCKS!
Richie's hit the proverbial nail right on the head.
I think you should email wired and see what they say about that verison
Nice work though!
"One must want nothing to be different-not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not only bear what is necessary, but to love it."
Neitzche
I just noticed you can actually leave comments on the article if you register. And someone has!
Yah know, I was so jazzed at just seeing some recognition in mainstream media, it didn't even occur what a backhand the actual definition was. Real seductive that media, type, thing.
Richie, as you lot across the pond like to say; Spot on, mate! Makes me wonder if we can Wiki it with Richie's definition and, at least, head off any contention about the word 'Fatosphere'
-DAILY AFFIRMATION:
>>All that is required to live ones life in balance
is the correct prescriptions and the proper dosages.<<
Of the obese, by the obese, for the obese - that infuriates me no end. It is not backhanded at all - it's derogatory and insulting. Period. Fuck them.
Zero isn't a size, it's a warning sign. - Carson Kressley
[blushes] I'm glad you like it guys; it took me literally thirty seconds to think up yesterday on my lunch hour, and on reviewing it after posting I thought it was actually a bit verbose, so if you want to use it (ie on Wiki) feel free to tweak it so it reads better - I couldn't because my Explorer-based work PC won't let me edit BFB posts for some reason.
Oh, and what Annie said. I figured anything any one of us came up with would be more respectful, and accurate, than categorising us as 'the obese'. Not least because, as Eliza and the person who posted on the Wired board point out, there is plenty of fatosphere material generated by folk who are not themselves fat (JFS is the one that springs immediately to mind, but I'm sure there are others).
I couldn't because my Explorer-based work PC won't let me edit BFB posts for some reason.
As an aside: BFB doesn't work fully properly with any version of IE.
It's funny how one word can be a defining moment in your life. Especially when you're a young, impressionable 13 year old. I can recall the very first time I heard and understood the word "obese". A little background--My mom was a fat adult and I was her only fat offspring. My family doctor was filling out some forms for my entrance into high school and I was sitting across from him in his office. When he got to the part on the form where it asks if there are any family medical issues he looked at me over his bifocals with a sneer and said the word "obesity" very slowly. I immediately understood what it meant and felt myself cringe. Ever since then I've always hated the word. That was also the first time I ever felt shame at being fat. Sure, I was teased in school a lot but so were kids who wore glasses or were too tall or too short. But to hear your doctor say this word and say them so cruelly was something I will never forget.
Which is why I'm so against the recent move amongst the medical community to start officially labelling teens and children (even babies, FFS) as 'obese'. For many years there was resistance to applying the term to children partly due to difficulties in definition and measurement (unlike the adult BMI scale, it's based on a weird system of percentiles and standard deviations that seems to vary by country and even by the team carrying out the research) and partly because in the past it was considered unhelpful and even counterproductive to stigmatise youngsters with such a derogatory identifier.
Of course in recent times hysteria has taken over, and again and again we see a 'healthy' weight, an unproven visual signifier of physical health, take priority over the child's emotional and psychological wellbeing. It seems that any 'collateral' damage resulting from attempts to make someone thin is disregarded, since this particular end always justifies the means.
See, now that makes ZERO sense. 'Lets drop something into an infants medical file that they can't control, is completely irrelevant, and may effect them for the rest of their lives'. It's almost as bad as agenetic registry for 'research purposes'. Are we now ignoring the fact that a child's weight in early age is, IN NO WAY, any indication of how fat or thin they will be throughout their lives? A hundred- THREE hundred years ago, doctors and midwifes knew this from simple observation. So, what's the point? So we'll know who the potential fatty's are? He/she is 35 and has a 'normal' BMI now but was an obese preadolescent and therefore has a .1% chance of developing ___________ (name that, fat related, disease)? Or maybe it's that old chest nut 'Shame the parents / Screw the child'. What about the skinny kid who gets fat later? Up until the age of 10, *I* was a skinny kid. Been fat ever since. So I guess that makes me an unrepentant fatty with, like, knowledge and forethought.
- DAILY AFFIRMATION:
>>The first step to accepting ones self is to say nice things about yourself.
The second, to do nice things for yourself.
The third, is to find someone to buy nice things for you.<<
Well exactly. I was skinny until I was about 11 or 12, when I grew a wee pot belly. If I'd been LEFT IN PEACE by society, I reckon I would have just grown out of it as I went through puberty -- that's what happened to both my sisters. Put on weight at the start of puberty (presumably to fuel the growth), then leave it behind as you grow. Except societal pressure and relatives telling me I was "getting porky" got in the way and I tried to starve it off -- cue eating disorder, yo-yo dieting, binge eating, blah blah blah, and now it's 10 years later, I'm far fatter than either of them, and I'm only NOW starting to remake the connections between food and my body that were taken away from me. It's so hard to overrule so many years of this shit. And II've never been happy with my weight since.
Yeah, I have a lot of anger about stigmatising fat kids.