HealthNotDiets Digest, Issue 24, 2018
June 10 - 16, 2018
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Happy reading!
Articles and Blogs
Being Disabled isn’t Eco Friendly: Get Off Our Backs and Put In The Work
by Imani
"it requires more than simply recycling plastics or banning straws, but racial, social, economic, and disability justice to make true strides to environmental stewardship.”
The case for renaming women's body parts
by Leah Kaminsky
“until the last century, women were almost excluded from academic medicine. But the continued use of these mostly male eponyms not only reflects the gender bias in our medical knowledge base. It may continue to perpetuate it.”
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180531-how-womens-body-parts-have-been-named-after-men
Coming Out As Queer Is Even More Complicated For A Fat Person
by Charlotte Morabito
“People assume that since fatness is so visible, there is no need for fat people to come out as fat...But some people view coming out as fat as a way of taking back & reclaiming the discourse around fatness.”
https://everydayfeminism.com/2017/09/queer-fat-person-complicated/
These Higher-Weight Female Athletes Are Shattering Myths About Fitness
by Ragen Chastain
“five...plus-sized female athletes share their stories to prove that there's plenty of room for all bodies in fitness.”
Laziness Does Not Exist, but unseen barriers do
by Erika Price
“when you don’t fully understand a person’s context — what it feels like to be them every day, all the small annoyances and major traumas that define their life — it’s easy to impose abstract, rigid expectations on a person’s behavior.”
https://medium.com/@dr_eprice/laziness-does-not-exist-3af27e312d01
'The Obesity Paradox:' When Obese Patients Fare Better Than Healthy Ones
by Alexa Lardieri
“compared with normal-weight patients, overweight patients were 23 less likely to die and obese patients were 22 percent less likely to die from sepsis than those of normal weight.”
My Body May Stay Fat, but It Will Not Stay Still
by Your Fat Friend
“My body will stay fat, just as it did when I swam for hours every day. My body will stay fat, just as it always has been. My body will stay fat, but it will not stay still.”
https://www.healthline.com/health/womens-health/fat-body-swimmer
What should we do about trauma?
by Dan Johnson
“cumulative adversity contributes to long-term health and behavioural difficulties for many.... It is a crucial time in deciding how we respond to adversity. Trauma-informed care has real potential to improve services for those who need them most.”
https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-31/june-2018/what-should-we-do-about-trauma
Body Positivity Is a Scam
by Amanda Mull
“maybe the most helpful thing brands could do for all of us is shut the f*ck up.”
https://www.racked.com/2018/6/5/17236212/body-positivity-scam-dove-campaign-ads
In Praise of Extreme Moderation
by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox
“Extremism is becoming the norm not only in our professional lives but increasingly in our personal lives as well, from politics and parenting to food and fitness.”
https://hbr.org/2018/06/in-praise-of-extreme-moderation
Dear Therapist: Your Client Has an Eating Disorder
by Gwyneth Olwyn
“someone BMI 37 can be facing as severe an energy deficit due to an eating disorder as someone BMI 17. Weight does not correlate to health status.”
https://edinstitute.org/paper/2018/5/2/dear-therapist-your-client-has-an-eating-disorder
Activated charcoal doesn't detox the body – four reasons you should avoid it
by Sophie Medlin
“We are often sold the idea that our diets are somehow “toxic” when the reality is that, aside from ingesting poison, even fast food doesn’t contain anything toxic.”
Letter to my thin friend - dining out
by Comfy Fat
“Being fat and eating in public is a risk in itself. Being a confident fatty and enjoying food in public is actually radical.”
http://comfyfat.com/2018/03/02/letter-to-my-thin-friend/
Is Avoiding My Body Issues an Issue?
by Cheryl Strayed and Steve Almond
“keep remembering that your body isn’t a problem to be solved. It isn’t a product to be displayed or an object to be judged. It’s not separate from who you are. It is who you are. At this size and in that shape at that weight.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/12/style/is-avoiding-my-body-issues-an-issue.html
The Stanford Prison Experiment was massively influential. We just learned it was a fraud.
by Brian Resnick
“Science is a frustrating, iterative process. When we communicate it, we need to get beyond the idea that a single, stunning study ought to last the test of time.”
https://www.vox.com/2018/6/13/17449118/stanford-prison-experiment-fraud-psychology-replication
The Long Con: Womanhood, Fatness and Normalizing Abuse
by Your Fat Friend
“I wasn’t just a woman, I was a fat woman. The bulk of my abuse had come at the hands of thin people, believing they were doing right and doing good, emboldened by a culture that agreed with them.”
https://medium.com/@thefatshadow/the-long-con-womanhood-fatness-and-normalizing-abuse-132336d8093f
American women’s obsession with being thin began with this ‘scientist’
by Shoshi Parks
“In the long run, Hauser remained relatively unscathed by allegations of his flimflammery and continued selling [diet] books into the 1970s. The beauty standards he helped to plant in the minds of women of all ages, too, have stood the test of time.”
https://timeline.com/diet-doctor-women-body-image-1da42b88d70
You Can Call Yourself Fat
by Kiva Bay
“my research is propelling me forward to a truly radical understanding of “fat” and “thin” as constructions of power within relationships both on the individual, state, and even global level.”
https://medium.com/s/story/you-can-call-yourself-fat-d2f4ed598bb4
Guide to Surviving Diet Culture in the Office
by Linda
“I admire the badass women I’ve met in my career. But, oh my god, an office full of women makes it nearly impossible to escape diet talk. I have worked in offices full of powerful, educated, brilliant women. And they all want to talk about their diets.”
https://fluffykittenparty.com/2018/06/15/guide-to-surviving-diet-culture-in-the-office/
Intuitive Movement: Learning to Play Again
by Lauren Anton
“If exercise is so beneficial, even to those who have abused it in the context of their eating disorder, how can we come back to movement that is joyful and free? How can we come back to our roots in intuitive movement?”
https://www.mirror-mirror.org/intuitive-movement.htm
Why Body Diversity in Pregnancy and Postpartum Matters to Moms Everywhere
by Crystal Karges
“In order to practice greater body acceptance, it is important to celebrate body diversity and honor the fact that pregnancy, birth, and postpartum beautifully unfolds in a variety of shapes and sizes.”
Here’s A Blank Invoice For Your Fat Girl Emotional Labor
by Virgie Tovar
“Remember each one of us has a goldmine of love, wisdom, compassion, skills, sensitivity, and knowledge. Make sure to carefully meter how much you give away, and make sure whoever is getting it deserves it.”
https://ravishly.com/fat-girl-emotional-labor
People Share How They Overcame Their Eating Disorder
by Rebecca Kamm
“Life expands when the eating disorder doesn’t occupy the majority of space. Recovery can feel like things are simultaneously falling apart and falling into place. It hurts, and you’re going to want to give up, and that’s OK. Keep going.”
https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/59j4m3/people-share-how-they-overcame-their-eating-disorder
Why Body Positive Yoga Instructors Are SO Important — And So Hard To Find
by Amanda Eisenberg
“I am better at yoga then a lot of girls in those classes, but the moment I step in the door the teacher assumes I'm not. Even if it's out of concern, it's still concern based on their own perceptions of fatness.”
https://www.bustle.com/p/why-body-positive-yoga-instructors-are-so-important-so-hard-to-find-8711290
Research &
Clinical Practice
Physical Features and Discrimination Practitioner Toolkit
by the National Employment Services Association
Handy summary of Australian anti-discrimination laws regarding physical appearance, including body size.
TLDR: Body size discrimination is illegal in Vic and ACT only
'Obesity' is not an eating disorder or evidence of one. But the sentiment that a larger body size must be self evident of major eating problems is one that is frequently expressed. So how did we come to believe this? _____ The main concepts here are 'prevalence' (how many cases of [whatever] occur in a specified group) and paying close attention to what particular group and characteristic is being discussed. _____ The statement 'A significant proportion of people with Binge Eating Disorder have a BMI greater than 30' IS NOT THE SAME AS 'Most people with a BMI greater than 30 have Binge Eating Disorder'. This is a critical difference. _____ With something like eating disorders and other relatively rare conditions, what happens is that due to accessibility those who have sought treatment for the condition are studied first. Typically research is conducted to describe their circumstances and try to make some guesses about factors that increase the risk of development of the condition. _____ So with eating disorders, there IS a relationship between BMI and the different eating disorders, with restrictive and compensatory eating disorders tending towards having a higher proportion of people of lower weights, and binge-type disorders tending towards people with higher weights. Note that it's a statistical association, not a diagnostic criteria. _____ BUT and this is the big problem - these stats do not relate to the general population. The general population prevalence of people with a BMI greater than 30 is MUCH HIGHER (about 30%) than the prevalence of ALL eating disorders (about 2%). _____ People with larger bodies are still far, far more likely to NOT have an eating disorder than to have one. _____ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006322318314409
History of modern nutrition science—implications for current research, dietary guidelines, and food policy
“[future nutrition policy must] include a shift from the global medicalisation of health towards addressing the interconnected personal, community, sociocultural, national, and global determinants of food environments and choices.”
Mozaffarian Dariush, Rosenberg Irwin, Uauy Ricardo. History of modern nutrition science—implications for current research, dietary guidelines, and food policy BMJ 2018; 361 :k2392
https://www.bmj.com/content/361/bmj.k2392
Soapbox & Shareables
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