AlterNet Interviews Campos

This is a great interview! I like that she delved into the class and race issues. The only way to contact her that I could find was at info@alternet.org

My best friend-girl is genetically thin and has never dieted. In high school she was about 5'4" or 5'5" and weighed about 93 pounds. (At the same height, I was maybe 165 back then.) She and I each have two kids. We both had pretty textbook pregnancies. Her top pregnancy weight was under 130, and her "normal" weight finally hit triple digits. I'm not sure, but I think she's around 110 now. About a size 5. I consider her unusual. Is it realistic to expect everyone to be that size? I don't think so. At more than 170 pounds, I lift weights, do cardio at least three times a week, and go to kickboxing classes. I don't think my BMI will ever be below 24, and I refuse to believe that alone makes me unhealthy.

I wonder if this: "The Obesity Wars are nothing but a big lie about fat, says the author of a provocative new book titled "The Obesity Myth: Why America's Obsession With _Health_ is Hazardous to Your Health."" (emphasis mine, from the third or fourth paragraph of the article) is a typo or a Freudian slip?

That's the actual subtitle of the book, scoyote, in an alternate universe. :)

Paul - Probably. :P :)

Alot of terrific quotes in there, also a great "intro" to Paul C.'s book for those I am trying to convince to read it.

"What weight would that be for that average height, 5'4" woman? 107 to 127 pounds. That's an incredibly low range." Indeed. My cubicle-mate at work is 5'4" (and very small-boned at that). At 120 pounds she's a Mary Kate Olsen look-alike. Positively skeletal. Can't imagine what a 5'4" woman at the bottom end (107 lb.)of that range would look like. These weights seem more like weights for children than fully mature adults.

OK, I know we've entered cloud-cuckoo land when my boyfriend (BMI 22.5) is considered "fat" by Harvard researchers. For God's sake, you can see his shoulder bones! And hasn't it occurred to these folks that people with a little padding are more likely to survive wasting illnesses like sepsis that disable and incapacitate millions of the elderly? I mean, come on. This is beyond insane.

"Burned at the stake." I love that. So the "normal" range of BMI has dropped AGAIN? I agree, that's nuts. At 107 pounds and 5'4" I looked fresh from the concentration camp. This spring I competed in a bodybuilding show at about 7 or 8% bodyfat, and my weight (dehydrated to the max and wearing a scanty bikini on show day) was 113. (And no, I'm not "jacked" on drugs; I have a fair bit of muscle mass but nothing amazing, IMHO, for a woman who works out.) Many women are not even hormonally functional at a BMI of 18. I agree with Nanette; the standards are no longer even normal for adults. How long can this go on? How long can an entire society survive with this kind of destructive, killing, and disordered thinking? I wouldn't even call it anorexic; bulimic is more like it, a denial that periodically spastically explodes as gorging, demonically encouraged by ever-more-effective psychological manipulation by Big Business.

I love his assertion that the current fat hysteria is anorexic ideation at a culturally functional level it is so true. Many researchers have demonstrated that dysfunctional eating behaviours exist on a continuum. There is no hard and fast line between what constitutes mild dysfunction and full-blown eating disorder...not even a thin one (no pun intended.) And it shows how dangerous this cultural groupthink is to people who are most likely to take it to those pathological extremes: ie children, and really anyone who is heavily influenced by outside messages (the majority of the population, methinks. Critical thinking skills really seem to be on the decline.) And, also, the idea that EVERY 5'4" woman should weigh between 107-127 lbs IS insane. Let me tell you why, giving myself as an example (I'm exactly 5'4"): as a kid, I was not considered fat, yet the last time I weighed 127 lbs was when I was 12 years old. Now that's not to say SOME women my height might be healthy at that weight. After all, weights exist on a bell curve, like most other population characteristics. So, naturally, some people will be at the low end, while others are naturally at the high end. Just the fact that the bell curve EXISTS should be enough to refute the crazy idea that EVERYONE of a certain height should weigh within the same narrow range! How can it POSSIBLY be healthy to recommend that a woman weigh the same amount she weighed as a prepubescent child??? Especially given women's tendency to osteoporosis, not to mention eating disorders??? Insane, indeed.

I just have to add that it's incredibly refreshing to see a more lefty media source actually questioning the fat=overconsumption equation, as sources like Adbusters so rankly failed to do. I also found the following quotes from this article particularly edifying: -"for the vast majority of people, weight simply isn't going to tell you anything relevant about their health" -"The war on fat is based on the assumption that if people have a healthy lifestyle they'll be thin." -"it's not only that we like thinness because it is fashionable but it becomes that thinness is actually good for health. And what's more, if we're not thin, it's our fault and we're bad people" -"The whole diet culture is a form of eating-disordered thinking" -"Everybody is now supposed to have the obsessions that are typical of upper-class white people" -"Racist ideology doesn't just disappear. It goes underground...a lot of this stuff gets displaced onto weight...Class bias gets displaced in this way as well." -"People who have bad nutritional habits are going to have poorer health than those who have a healthy diet without regard to their weight." -"the focus is on forms of over-consumption that are relatively trivial ñ the food we put in our body ñ than those that have bigger consequences such as driving gigantic SUVs, commuting 40 miles one way to work, living in a 5000 square feet home with one other person" -"there may be a point to life beyond living as long as possible." This guy is so eloquent and has his ideas so firmly staked.

I've been a member here for a while, and I know I don't comment enough(I'm not as knowledgeable as most people here about fat/size acceptance), but I needed to ask: the whole issue of fat/size acceptance is so complicated; when I have children, how can I explain it to them in language they can understand? I know that once I start to send them out into the world, ie: school, they will be bombarded with fat hatred and society's "mental illness" regarding anyone who isn't a 'Stepford Wife'. I want my future children to be happy, healthy and informed, but, I haven't seen a lot about teaching fat acceptance to children, which is sad, considering that they learn the hatred as soon as they are born. Maybe if we start to focus on educating our children, we can have more hope for the future of acceptance on all levels. Those are just my thoughts; I apologize if this topic has been covered before. Thank you to everyone here for your insight; every day my self esteem grows a little bit more from reading all the positive things people have to say on this website. It's such a refreshing oasis from the world outside my door ;) ~Amanda~

loki1181, you haver asked the million $ question. My daughter is coming up on 2 - 1/2 and I struggle with this. There was a great article in Mothering magazine (alas, it is not yet on the website) in the March/April 2004 (#123) issue. There is another article up on the site about fostering politcial awareness and activism in kids. If you have Mothering at your local library, the size acceptance articles are on pages 40 and 44. I think that is a good place to start. Some resources listed in the article: Kathy Kater: Real Kids Come in All Sizes: Ten Essential Lessons to Build Your Child's Body Esteem and Healthy Body Image: Teaching kids to Eat and Love Their Bodies Too!. Children can definitely be taught respect for body diversity, just as a new generation of kids are learning to end racism. We can raise tomorrow's movers and shakers ;^) If they are raised in a diversity-positive household, they will absorb it and accept it as the norm, even when outside forces are giving contradictory views. ( when your future children are old enough, you can always show them BFB :^)

You can also use "fat" the way it's intended - that man is tall, that woman has brown hair, that man is fat, that woman is bald...a friend of mine, who I have been slowly educating, has two children (4 and 1.75). The boy is going to be above the new BMI norm, I can almost guarantee it (he's built just like his uncle, who is one of the healthiest people I know), so she's started worrying about this stuff as well. However, she uses the descriptors exactly as stated above, doing her darnedest not to put any particular value emphasis in her voice when she does. So does her husband. So far, it seems to be working. Although her son did throw her for a loop recently by asking her if he was "fat" (he was watching some TV show that was doing opposites, I guess). At four years of age!

so at five six I should probably weigh 130-140 right? is that about right? I never in my life weighed that as an adult even when I dieted and jogged and walked all the time. the lowest I ever got was around 165 and that was a struggle and I couldn't hold it for very long. I would be content with my weight around 180 or 170 or so, way above the weight charts but I don't put any credibility in those charts they are made by anorexic minded people. to much tv watching is probably where that got that idea. as long as I can walk my trails and get my blood pressure down to safe limites and I can keep the muscles I have and can keep up with my hubby on the trails, then I am happy, and I can do my housework without getting out of breath and I can keep my yard up without getting exhausted after only an hour or two I will then have reached my goal. too bad the public is bombarded with crap all the time.