stillness is a lie, my dear
Splenda is one among an army of artificial sweeteners marketed to people primarily as a weight loss tool, though people with diabetes also rely on artificial sweeteners to bring sweetness into their diets without triggering diabetic reactions. These lab-designed products make big, big money for their manufacturers, with sucralose (Splenda) being a common sight in […]
As the mainstream media constantly harp on the ‘obesity epidemic’ and warn us all of the growing numbers of fatties sweeping the nation, one thing people seem reluctant to do is to adjust medical education when it comes to teaching trainee doctors how to interact with fat patients. As this is a world where fat […]
After battling righteously with Covered California, I’m covered by Kaiser, and in January, I made my first official visit as an insured patient to meet my preferred provider (whom I had to pick from a website, making me feel like I had stumbled into alternate reality online dating) and to start being slowly ingested into […]
Simulations appear to be one of society’s ways of trying to generate sympathy and compassion among more privileged members of communities vis a vis their relationship with more marginalised groups. Thus you have the ‘blue eyes, brown eyes’ simulation used in civil rights education, disability simulations involving wearing clunky gloves or strange glasses, and exercises in wearing […]
Before I begin, a note, as I suspect this piece is going to be controversial: This post is about my personal relationship to the Health at Every Size (HAES) philosophy, in which I delve into some of the issues I have with it. It is not an attack on HAES as a whole or those […]
I’m fat. Most of the days I’m pretty okay with that. It seems to be the state my body prefers; only by going on severe calorie restriction and excessive exercise regimens can I get thinner, and as soon as I relax a little, my weight rebounds. I’ve hit a set point where my body stays […]
The United States is a country that hates fat people. It invests untold amounts of dollars in fatphobic hate campaigns targeting the general public, shaming fat people, attempting to institute sin taxes on various ‘bad’ foods, and so much more. When it comes to fat, and bodies, it’s clear that regulatory officials have gone off […]
Hi. I’m fat. I’m what most people call an in-betweenie—I have a heavy build, I wear plus sizes, my stomach poofs out, I have folds of fat along my back, I have chubby arms and legs. I can still buy clothes off the rack at a lot of stores, though. Don’t rush to tell me […]
The prevailing social attitude about fatness is that it’s disgusting and gross, something people should be ashamed of and cover up in order to prevent anyone else from being subjected to the horrors of seeing a fat person out in the wild. People believe that fatness is foul and they are entitled not to see […]
When people claim we are a secular society, I always laugh, because I don’t really know how else to respond. Christian attitudes and worldviews are very much wrapped up in Western thought, and they’re impossible to evade, whether you’re talking about ‘atoning’ for a mistake or exclaiming ‘oh my G-d’ when something shocking happens. Christianity […]