Toronto Star Advice Columnist Ellie Preaches Acceptance
Not perfect, but a step. vidyapriya noted that the latest Toronto Star advice column tackles fat in its second question this edition. The response, while not perfect in the acceptance realm, is pretty good - surprising!
The question comes from a woman whose sister is fat; she brings up the usual concerns about it and even notes that the family went to therapy. The bottom line?
Back off. Do not discuss weight, healthy eating, dieting or working out with your sister, and advise your parents to also stop all pressure on this front. Acceptance is what your sister needs most of all.
She may always be a plus-size woman, so stop trying to remake her. Your unconditional acceptance is the boost she needs to her self-image, whether or not she decides to improve her nutrition.
Nice.
Funny thing is, earlier this morning I was reading Amy Dickenson's advice column in the Chicago Tribune from Sunday and she actually trotted out a mild HAES approach. Again, not perfect in part because Dickenson brings up The Biggest Loser as a positive example of a show for the question's author (gah.) But look at this message to the question's author in regards to a fat 12-year-old she's "concerned" for:
Her self-esteem is partially influenced by how she thinks others view her—if you think she's terrific, regardless of her size, then she will like the way she feels when she's around you. This can have a positive impact on her.
That's some pretty great stuff to be seeing in the papers, I must admit.
Abundia 2008 | UK 'Expert' Calls for Removing Fat Kids from Homes
Posted by paul on September 23, 2008
Paul, are you losing your mind? The Toronto response is lovely, but Dear Amy -- "not perfect," you say? Yeesh, it's hooey. It's not even HAES lite. It's urghworthy.
You might make some headway if you frame this situation as a health issue rather than only about weight. Isn't that a bingo square? Fat = unhealthy.
And her comments about the Biggest Loser program being about people getting control of their health through diet and exercise? Good Lord. You haven't watched the show recently, have you? It gets worse and worse every season. The last time I saw it they had a segment, I think was called "the final push," where the contestants exercised until some of them barfed. And, oh, the response to those who had the gall to exercise reasonably, with smiles on their faces, for example. The camera zoomed in on the scornful faces of their trainers. It was clear that this was NOT acceptable. But Amy is pushing this as inspirational. Ewe.
That whole "self esteem" line of bull that you quote is clearly just tactical -- "Her self-esteem is partially influenced by how she thinks others view her" Note that it's how she thinks others view her, not how they really do. In other words, act like you accept her fat. The "positive impact" that Amy then references is code language for "she'll come around to diet-think."
You know all this; you taught it to me. You're having a soft moment in the head, I think.
DebraSY:
I second you on that. Amy totally missed the boat. She should have told Mr./Ms. Busybody to leave the poor girl and her family alone and get a life. If I had been the advice columnist, I would have turned the tables on the busybody and suggested that s/he seek counseling, as this person is a control freak.
And The Biggest Loser??? Barf. The weigh-ins alone are enough to make me detest the show. They make the men take off their shirts and the women are clad only in sports bras. Obviously this is to inspire revulsion in the thin viewers at home. I understand it's the contestants' choice to be on television, but it's still a disgusting program.
And now they've moved on to a "family edition" of the hideous thing! I feel sorry for the poor kids who will have no choice but to be dragged onto national television without their consent and be branded as OMG teh hideous fatz!
Agree with Debra on both counts; the Star response is awesome, and the only fault I could find was that it's much too short . It seems apparent that 'Ellie' may have had some exposure to FA ideas, and it would have been nice to have seen more of it in her response. Even so, she covered many of the main points.
On the other hand any positive reference to The Biggest Loser is an instant dealbreaker for me, even if the article is otherwise sound (and this was anything but). I detest that show with a passion. I saw an expose about how despite supposedly having addressed concerns about health, producers encourage participants to sweat and pee every drop of fluid out of their bodies before final weigh-in, not to mention the rumours of drug use and other medically dubious strategies to fool the scales. Whilst I'd never waste an hour of my life watching TBL, nor expose my child to it (much less recommend it as a confidence boost!), even the previews on NBC, full of weeping fatties in their underwear, filled me with rage for the unfortunates who have been tricked into participating in their own televisual humiliation and the destruction of their self-confidence in the name of mass-market entertainment.
The success of fat exploitation shows such as TBL makes them very dangerous from an acceptance perspective. And whilst it may be a runaway success in terms of generating revenue and fat hate in equal measure, for any supposed advice columnist to recommend it as 'inspiring' or any sort of example of 'getting control of one's health' is in my opinion not only irresponsibly inaccurate but morally reprehensible.
"if you think fat people have no self-discipline, consider the fact that they haven’t killed you yet." - Miss Conduct, Boston Globe
Richie: Ditto - ditto every blessed word you wrote. I feel humiliated just seeing the "this fall on NBC.." shit previews. It's things like this that make me wish for cosmic karma, some sort of final leveling that says, "here's the other end of what you lived." Because shit like this isn't going to end anytime soon - it will only crank up as sales of boxes of Special K, vats of yogurt, tablets of Alli (and fresh underpants), and every flavor of weight-loss snake oil continue to soar. I hate these people who prey on the fat - I truly do, but I hate the fatties who go willingly to the slaughter even more. I admit that I hate myself and I try to avoid public places, but I'll be damned if I willingly and publicly (or privately) submit to the humiliation of the same bunch of bullies who poked at me, ripped my clothes, trashed my school work, etc ad nauseum in the past. They've taught me to hate myself and stay out of their way, but I will never hand myself over to them to torture for their pleasure.
The entire family went to therapy because one of them was fat? Wow, talk about issues. I sure wish my life were so actual problem-free that I could afford to get worked up over a sibling's weight.
I'd like to suggest that readers write to the Toronto Star (lettertoed@thestar.ca) to thank them for running this. The Star -- like most newspapers -- frequently features articles about the supposed horrors of fatness and the goodness of dieting, and hearing positive comments about this column may influence them.
(I would write myself, but apparently a phone number is required for them to call and confirm the authorship of a letter before it goes to print, and I haven't got a phone.)
I think "concerned sister" needs further education in family genetics. If she's adopted, and she does start eating more heathily, she still may not get as slim as her adoptive family. Also, if she hoarded junk food as child, there may be a chance that instead of mom and dad instiling healthy eating concepts, they severely restricted access to sweets, which was listed as one of the six food mistakes parents make.
As for the 12 year-old, we don't know how overweight she really is. Considering what passes for overweight these days in America, this woman may be exaggerating. And if mom and dad were chunky kids, it could be that daughter inherited their body type and like the sister above, a balanced diet and exercise may not get her down to society's version of "an ideal weight." And suggesting her watch TBL is a horrid piece of advice. The last thing a 12 year-old girl needs to see is people fainting and puking and being belittled because they didn't lose a bunch of weight in a few weeks.
I agree that they are some GREAT comments. The tide is slowly but surly turning.
Is it me or is this hilarious?
I find it impossible to watch a programme like this and think, these people are gaining control, absurd.
I on the otherhand am really enjoying regaining my freedom and sense of humaness; mainly by feeling really really good about myself as I am and not being a big loser, it's challenging, fun and interesting. I think it's got something to do with my health, but I 'm not prepared to be didactic about it.
I have a physician that continually suggests to me that I should apply to be on TBL. I've never watched the show, but given that I spend hours every week convincing 2 children in my life not to refer to themselves, each other or anyone else by the term "Loser" -- I was pretty sure I wouldn't like it anyhow!
FatKimmie:
May I sit on your doctor until s/he stops breathing? That is a horrid thing to suggest even once, let alone continually!
For me it probably is about "control", the word wriggle99 emphasized. I tend to gain a little beyond my equilibrium when other things in my life are going wrong, and lose it again once my life is back under control. So to me, my weight often signifies how well my life is going, and maybe I get mixed up and think "if i can control my weight, everything will be ok again" when in fact what usually happens is "everything is ok again and my weight goes back to equilibrium because I'm not avoiding sleep and stressing out".
Which is still a bit heavy according to today's style but oddly I don't care when everything else is going right.
Canada has always been a bit more sophisticated that we have it seems. Toronto public health did a really fair minded blog once too. Unfortunately I lost the URL. As for Amy, all of MSM exists to promote products. They are never going to get it because they are paid to make us consumers. But at least we can comment in the comment section!!!
Ellie's September 30th column is also pretty good; the letter-writer repeatedly tries to make her mother-in-law's weight an issue, but Ellie doesn't take the bait: http://www.thestar.com/living/article/508402
Based on what I've read in the fatosphere, Canada does indeed seem to be doing pretty well compared to other countries. For example, our largest public research hospital, Toronto General / University Health Network, houses the National Eating Disorder Information Centre (www.nedic.ca), which produces anti-diet and positive-body-image literature, and entitles its annual ED awareness week "Celebrating Our Natural Sizes" (awesome posters and stuff associated with it, too). I have trouble imagining that coming from a US medical institution.