NaPoWriMo 2020 Day 14 + April PAD Challenge 2020 Day 14: Your Legacy

Image by Barbara Bonanno from Pixabay

I

am not

what you hoped

but I am, nonetheless

the legacy that you created

I am your Frankenstein monster

built from the things

that made your life

worth living

I am a

twisted

sorry

awful

mockery

a failure

of a person

I am not 

what you hoped

but I am, nonetheless

the gifts you gave me

~cie~

NaPoWriMo: write a poem about the people who inspired you to write poems

April PAD Challenge: write a form poem

notes

I think the shape above is a chess pawn. It started out as a simple diamante but turned into what you see. It is what it is.

This poem addresses my late father. He was a professor of literature and humanities who also taught technical writing. I was a precocious little skidmark who learned to read and write by the time I was four years old. I think my father believed that this prodigious spark meant that I was destined for greatness. He read poetry to me. I started reading Edgar Allan Poe's works when I was six years old.

My father wound up tremendously disappointed in me. I was a fuckup who could never do anything right and I had a slew of psychological problems. I was singled out and abused by my peers. I married too young. I had one abusive relationship after another. I engaged in self-harm. Possibly, worst of all, between a fucked endocrine system and years of yo-yo dieting, I ended up fat. My father believed that being fat was a sign of failure. He always went to great lengths to prevent himself from being fat. He ran six miles a day for many years. However, his vascular system was a disaster. He had a major hemorrhagic stroke at 68 years old. At the time of his death at age 74, he had suffered several more strokes, had congestive heart failure and vascular dementia, and was confined to a wheelchair.

If anyone's first inclination is to tell me "cHeEr Up, U cAn StiLLL LUz3 tEh WaTeZ!!111!!!" my suggestion to you is to check the ever-loving fuck out of yourself. Preferably on ice during a hockey game. I tried to hate myself thin for 33 years. With my endocrine problems, it is highly unlikely that I will ever be thin unless I do what my great-grandmother did. She developed acute myelogenous leukemia, dropped from 300 pounds to 95 in the space of a year, and dropped dead. But hey, she cut a svelte figure in her coffin, and, apparently, that's the only fucking thing that counts. Never mind that she was now, you know, DEAD.

In any case, I'm not going to waste another goddamn minute of my time trying to hate myself into the body that other people think I'm supposed to have. Thirty-three years of that shit is long enough. People who think I, or anyone else should do that, can slam down a hot, steaming cup of STFU, read the following fine books, and fuck off forever. Or if you're not a brainwashed, narrow-minded asswipe and you simply think: "say, those books look like they have some good information," you can read them while drinking what you want and omit the fucking off part. I'd think that was pretty cool.

Insecure Writers Support Group Meets COVID-19

April 1 question - The IWSG’s focus is on our writers. Each month, from all over the globe, we are a united group sharing our insecurities, our troubles, and our pain. So, in this time when our world is in crisis with the covid-19 pandemic, our optional question this month is: how are things in your world?

The world wags on. I live in a remote rural area, and if I didn't have to emerge to do stupid things like going to the pharmacy (it's always a fight to get the necessary amount of insulin), going to finish clearing out an old mobile home to get it ready to put on the market or paying the weekly visit to my mother (300-mile round trip) I would rarely emerge. (Not saying that going to visit my mother is stupid, but the other two things are definitely a source of aggravation.)

Since I do freelance work from home due to being disabled, my life has, fortunately, not been significantly impacted by the Hell Virus. I know that if I were to be infected by a serious case of it, I'd be dead. I have asthma and diabetes. I'm 55 years old and disabled, and the world already thinks that people who look like me should die. I would be triaged as not worth saving. I probably should be scared, but if I put my energy into being scared nothing gets done. So, I get on with things.

I loathe the Orange Menace occupying the White House. His narcissism during this time of crisis is beyond the pale. He should have been hauled out in handcuffs when he was impeached, but like toenail fungus, he remains. I have more respect for toenail fungus than I do for my country's so-called "president."

Yeah, that's about what I've got for now. My snarky alter-egos Ornery Owl and Sly Fawkes collaborated to make this post, which is worth what you paid for it.

Fat and Ornery

Image copyright Open Clipart Vectors on Pixabay

Sly and Snarky

Image copyright juliahenze @123rf.com

Fat Friday: Thoughts from an Irritating Overweight Woman

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

As my fan club of -666 readers knows, I review books for a living, such as it is.

I was presented with a book to possibly review, and was, initially, excited. It was a collection of short stories about a group of female friends.

The short story is an undervalued art and female friendships are an undervalued treasure. I was interested in reading this until I saw one of the characters described by another reviewer as "an irritating overweight woman."

The comment about the "irritating overweight woman" gave me pause. Why is her weight such a determining factor in her characterization? Many authors tend to write large people in a negative light. As a person who fights with my abusive partner ED (Eating Disorder) constantly, I don't really need to read works that vilify people who look like me. It's a shame because a good short story collection about female friendship sounded like just the ticket.

I decided to give the book a hard pass.

Authors (like society as a whole) love to scapegoat, stereotype, and vilify large people. I have enough problems wrestling with ED on a daily basis. I don't really need to read fiction putting down people who look like me yet again. ED does that quite often enough.

Fat and Ornery

Image copyright Open Clipart Vectors

Sly and Snarky

Image copyright juliahenze @123rf.com

Fat Friday: It's Okay to Love Your Body, But...

Image by Christian Dorn from Pixabay

The following is a reply to Ragen Chastain's post about the kind of jackasses who defy the no weight loss talk rule in fat acceptance spaces.

“It’s ok to love your body but…”

Whenever anyone begins a sentence with that chestnut, I just know that I’m going to want to push them in front of a bus. Or more likely a tractor, since I live out in the middle of nowhere.

Furthermore, the idea of "loving my body" is such a foreign concept to me that you might as well be telling me to go dance on Jupiter. I can't imagine loving my body. It's a fight for me to even be neutral towards my body. 

I have to fight all the negative messages about my body several times a day every day and probably will for the rest of my life. Forget "loving" my body. I would be happy to be able to just ACCEPT my damn body and move on. But jerks who begin sentences with "it's okay to love your body, but..." do their level best every day to make sure that I will never even be allowed to just accept mine.

Fat and Ornery

Image copyright Open Clipart Vectors

Sly and Snarky

Image copyright juliahenze @123rf.com

Fat Friday: Standing My Ground

Image by John Hain from Pixabay

Nothing is wrong with your big body.

The way people with big bodies are abused, bullied, and devalued is wrong.

So, I told myself that I was doing all right, but I was actually starting to spiral. It all came crashing down after I ended up making a casserole that was a culinary disaster and then reading a post on a medical site by a dietitian looking for a punching bag so she turned to fat people, but of course. The sharticle in question used terms like "glorifying obesity." 

After leaving this unoriginal twatwaffle a scathing reply pointing out that there is no "glorifying obesity", there are merely people daring to exist in public while fat and it offends her delicate sensibilities, I deflated like a balloon that had been poked with a pin. I crawled under the covers and went to bed without dinner, falling asleep while watching Clone Wars and wishing I was dead.

People do not take care of things that they hate, and that includes our bodies.

Assholes like this dietitian who rail against fat people like we were the fucking second coming of the black death end up pushing fat people away from seeking help for whatever may be ailing them rather than engaging in preventative or maintenance care. Fat people tend to only go to the doctor when things become critical because of the way we are treated by the medical establishment. This goes a long way towards explaining why doctors only see unhealthy fat people. Who the hell wants to go to a place where they know they are going to be bullied?

This is why size shaming and diet culture don't work. Health at Every Size works.

I'm fat, not stupid. I know when I'm being othered and scapegoated. It's a bullshit approach, and if you use it, I'm going to tell you to go fuck yourself. 

Believe it or not, I used to be a really nice, sweet person. Being bullied and made to feel ashamed of myself at every turn beat that right the fuck out of me.

Right now, t 'is the season for "so, how's your New Years Resolutions (translate: diet culture adherence and burst of orthorexia) going?" posts.

I ditched diet culture ten years ago after 33 years of yo-yo dieting and trying to hate myself thin. I don't do new year's resolutions. If I'm going to exercise, I'm going to exercise. It's hard to do much at this point with my disabilities, but I do try to get in a walk every day. 

I absolutely do not diet. Dieting destroys a person's metabolism. I was a serial dieter and every time I dieted, the weight I lost came back with friends. 

Yes, I'm fat, and if people are going to be jerks about it, they are not people I want around me anyway.

“Is 'fat' really the worst thing a human being can be? Is 'fat' worse than 'vindictive', 'jealous', 'shallow', 'vain', 'boring' or 'cruel'? Not to me.”

― J.K. Rowling

Fat and Ornery

Image copyright Open Clipart Vectors

"Fat isn't the problem. Dieting is the problem."
--Dr. Linda Bacon

About Me Monday: Ornery and Sly: Stop the Bullying and Stigma

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Today isn't FOAD Thursday, but "The Biggest Dickweed" and anyone who supports it can FOAD every day. Please read about and sign the petition to stop this horrible, hateful garbage from being resurrected.

If you're one of these people who are so indoctrinated into diet culture (I was one of those people for 33 years, and it never made me thin, it just made me miserable) that you believe that shaming and bullying large people "for their own good" is a great idea, here are some key points refuting that belief.

This show caused so much harm to the health of contestants and viewers alike by perpetuating weight stigma. Since the show went off the air, we have research related to how weight stigma and yo-yo dieting actually harms people in larger bodies. Additionally, there is research from prior Biggest Loser contestants indicating long term negative effects:

Participants not only gained the weight back due to a slowing of the metabolism but that participants had increased leptin levels that cause extreme hunger: 
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weight-loss.html

From The National Association of Eating Disorders:
“Weight stigma, also known as weight bias or weight-based discrimination, is discrimination or stereotyping based on a person's weight. Weight stigma can increase body dissatisfaction, a leading risk factor in the development of eating disorders.” 
https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/weight-stigma

From Abby's Kitchen:
DANGEROUS SECRETS FROM THE BIGGEST LOSER & MY PETITION TO MAKE IT STOP
“A study published in the Journal of Obesity suggested that watching even one episode of the Biggest Loser increased hateful weight bias among viewers! This is particularly concerning to me when there are children watching, as it’s easy to sense and duplicate the disgust for fatness when they see it in their peers or even themselves."
https://www.abbeyskitchen.com/nutrition-dangerous-secrets-biggest-loser-my-petition-make-i/

From Today’s Dietitian:
January 2018 Issue

The Health Impact of Weight Stigma
By Carrie Dennett, MPH, RDN, CD
Today's Dietitian
Vol. 20, No. 1, P. 24

“The health risks of weight discrimination are consistent with the observed effects of racial discrimination.”

Being the target of weight stigma increases the risk of poor mental health outcomes, including depression, anxiety, poor self-esteem, suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and eating disorders. These associations happen regardless of BMI, so it's unlikely that body weight itself is a cause.”

“Harrison says. "The majority of the clients I've treated for disordered eating cite bullying or shaming for their weight by parents, peers, coaches, or health care professionals as the initial trigger for their issues with food."
https://www.todaysdietitian.com/newarchives/0118p24.shtml

My reason for signing the petition is this.

Promotion of size shaming and eating disorders does not equate with "health."

I have had an eating disorder since I was twelve years old. I was not fat at twelve, but I was so terrified of becoming fat that I became bulimic. 

I never felt direct hatred for fat people, but I saw the way that they were bullied and shamed. I was already the target of bullying. I couldn't bear the idea of the bullying being stepped up if I got fat. 

I am fat at this point. Not the "I feel fat" kind of fat. (By the way, "fat" is not a feeling.) I am really, genuinely, truly fat, and yes, I am "that" fat. My size, like everyone's size, results from a combination of factors. The first and most important factor in determining a person's body type is DNA. 

One of the waitresses I worked with at the job I had eighteen years ago was a tall, sturdy young woman. One time in the break room she ended up telling me about her sister, who was bulimic and anorexic. She told her sister: "we're big people. We come from a line of big people. It isn't natural for us to be skinny." 

So, which sister was the "healthier" of the two? The one who accepted the way she was built and went on with her life, or the one who was so obsessed with the idea of becoming thin that she was going to extremes to manipulate her body to a perceived point of acceptable slenderness?

By the way, health is not a measure of personal worth. I am not asking which of these sisters was more worthy of being treated with common decency. They are both worthy of that.

I had a very difficult time during this past holiday season. My feelings of self-worth plummeted to the depths. I ended up starving myself. I also ceased my daily walks. I didn't feel motivated to walk, and I felt as if everyone was staring at me and judging me. Also, walking can be painful for me. No, not because I'm fat. I was fat back when I was waitressing. I was fat when I was working as a nursing assistant and later as a nurse. These jobs contributed to the spinal problems I now have. So did engaging in behaviors consistent with orthorexia, such as spending five hours a day at the gym on my days off from work. My size did not.

I don't know how people can fathom that it's okay to say whatever they want to a big person. Okay, I actually know how it happens. It happens because larger people have been othered and dehumanized. One of our neighbors saw me having trouble shoveling the snow off the porch. He came over to help. In fairness, he wasn't trying to be cruel, and I think he is in the early stages of dementia. But this is what came to his mind, and what society has led him to think is perfectly okay to say.

"My wife was built like you. She was obese. But at least you're trying. She didn't try, so she died."

If you think that "obese" is a harmless word, think again. Obese is a shaming, othering, dehumanizing word which leads to people being denied proper health care and even basic respect. Obese is a word that kills people.

I'm fat. I'm not stupid. I know when I'm being condescended to. I know when I'm being looked down on. I know when I'm being othered.

Sometimes my bad attitude prevails and I let the middle finger fly and go on about my life.

Sometimes I get broken and relapse into unhealthy behaviors (starving myself) and self-loathing.

I got broken over this holiday season. I starved myself, and I stopped taking my walks because I felt like I was being watched and judged and the walks weren't bringing on the almighty WATE LOOZE!!11!!! Which, of course, is the only thing that matters.

I am getting back in the saddle and charging back into action on my very large horse.

So, if you're one of those people who thinks it's okay to behave badly towards me and others who look like me because we don't fit your criteria of beautiful or fuckable or because we don't fulfill your criteria of perfect "health"...

Let's face it. It's never really about health. 

You may expect that this is where I tell you to FOAD.

Actually, I'm going to ask you to read the words above mine again.

Then I'm going to ask you to go read these blogs.

Big Fat Science
Dances With Fat
Heavyweight Heart

If, after reading those blogs you still think it's fun to ridicule fat people or concern troll fat people or you still think The Biggest Dickweed is good wholesome entertainment for the family...

Then you can fuck off forever.

Fat and Ornery

Image copyright Open Clipart Vectors

Sly and Snarky

Image copyright juliahenze @123rf.com

The last diet you will ever need.
 

Inner Champion Workbook Chapter 5: Take the First Step (Fat Friday Edition)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through any of the links in this post, I receive a small commission from Amazon.

Fair warning that I am having a dark day despite it being bright and sunny outside. In fact, the bright sunniness makes the inner darkness worse. I hate when people say things like "how can you be depressed when it's so beautiful outside?" Please, if you say that sort of thing to someone who tells you they're feeling depressed, STOP! It doesn't help.

And now, on with the show.

An important goal that I’m going to achieve:

I don't know if this will happen or not, but there is an empty building across the street from my home which is zoned for commercial use. I will be able to access my 401K without penalty at 59, in other words, about four years from now. If the building is still available at that point, I am thinking about investing in it and bringing my idea to life.

"It won't be available then, Cie," you are probably saying. "Real estate goes fast!"

In the city, yes. Not out in the middle of nowhere. The house I'm currently living in had been empty since 2013.

"Well, what the hell do you think you're going to do with a building in the middle of nowhere, Cie?" you say now. 

I am thinking about opening a goat yoga studio.

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

"Goat yoga?" you sniff. "Who the hell is going to drive to your stupid goat yoga studio in the middle of nowhere?"

As my son observed when I postulated that I could probably pull in a few yuppies from Denver to drive out to Podunk on weekends for a goat yoga session:

"Denver? You mean Boulder."

He's right.

"Oh, and are you going to teach yoga, you disabled lardass? Who would want to take a class from you?"

No, I'm not, because I don't know the first thing about teaching yoga. I plan to put out a call for volunteer instructors, who would be allowed to record their sessions, pass out business cards, recruit people to sign up for their regular classes, and have a tip jar available.

By the way, a big rule at my studio will be this:

NO BODY SHAMING!

No fat-shaming.

No thin praising.

No encouragement of weight loss. No selling weight loss programs.

I want to provide an encouraging environment for every body. I want my studio to operate with a Health at Every Size (and every ability) approach.

Why this goal is important to me:

Most yoga classes shame larger students, behaving as if a literal monster just walked into the room when a big person comes in. It is also difficult for disabled students to find a class. I want the classes at my studio to encourage EVERY BODY, regardless of size or physical ability.

Image by filinecek from Pixabay

Why goat yoga?

Well, for those who have never heard of it, goat yoga is actually a thing. The presence of the goats is shown to have a calming and encouraging effect on those participating in the class. The goats won't have to learn the yoga poses. They'll be free to wander in and out of the classroom. And if a participant spends the entire session just playing with the goats, that's perfectly fine! Basically, the goats are therapy animals.

What has been preventing me from taking the first step?
Lack of access to funds.

How can I remove these obstacles or work around them?

Currently, I'm just waiting for four years and hoping nobody buys the place in the meantime. I also have a potential secondary site in mind.

The first step I am going to take toward achieving my goal:

I am currently making micro-investments with my small and undependable pay. I am hoping these will start generating passive income. I am also trying to promote my freelance literary services, as well as continuing to do reviews. I am going to apply to Kirkus Reviews at the beginning of next year in the hopes of bringing in another income stream.

For support and accountability, I am going to share my goal with:
My son knows, and now you all do too.

I feel better after writing this post. Sending positive energy to Lauren for the gift of her workbook, to Linda for the gift of Health at Every Size which helped me break out of the diet mindset almost 10 years ago, and to Caroline for the encouragement not to fall back into that limiting mindset.

Here are a couple more books to help you say FUCK YOU to diet culture and instead concentrate on REAL health, both mental and physical.

November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 10: Tyranny of Perfection

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

so I got to thinking

what if Death 

isn't a grim dude in a black hood

but is instead

an annoyingly perfect and perfectionistic

aerobics instructor

who chirps at you

that it's time to do your cardi-oh-oh

and when you do those leg lifts

you've gotta squeeze those glutes

because if you don't squeeze 'em

no-one else will

and I kind of got to thinking

what if I don't want my life

to revolve around whether or not

some dudebro wants to

play grab-ass with me

and then that chipper death

chirped at me that I

need to mind my carbs and calories

because fat is the very worst thing

that a person can possibly be

and then I got to thinking

that maybe that's not true

that in fact the worst thing a person

can possibly be

is a sanctimonious twat

who refuses to respect

other people's lives and conditions and preferences

and bodily autonomy

and who really can just fuck off

and then I got to wondering 

if maybe that's the way Death works

is by annoying people to death

by making them fight all day every day

with vicious inner voices

that tell them they're no good

because they have dimpled thighs

or chunky butts

or saggy boobs

or tummy rolls

or they just aren't perky-werky enough

and then I got to thinking 

that maybe what happens

is people get tired 

of hearing Death's annoying voice

bleating at them to get up and at 'em

because nobody who isn't perfect

deserves to have a life

and so they smash the snooze bar

on their internal clock

one too many times

in an attempt to shut the annoying bitch up

once and for all

~Cie~

Notes:

Today's November PAD Chapbook Challenge asked for a (blank) of (blank) poem. I initially went with "hands of time," which is how I found the image of the perky aerobics instructor looking lady with her watch. I started thinking about all the years and time and money I spent trying to hate myself thin, and it really pissed me off that the message people (especially women) are sent from the moment we draw breath isn't "take care of yourself because you are worthwhile regardless of your size or looks," it's "if you girls aren't thin and pretty in a very specific way, you are garbage and don't deserve happiness." 

So, I changed the title of my poem to Tyranny of Perfection and wrote about what it feels like to fight with the hateful internal dialogue that has been crammed down my throat for as long as I can remember. It would be nice to be able to just BE, without having to fight with these horrible messages from the cradle to the grave. Doing so is the biggest fucking waste of time and a waste of a perfectly good life too.

Carpe Diem Summer Challenge 2019: Beach Party for Every Body

Image by David Shaw from Pixabay

What I have been wondering for a long time is this.

Why is it that when you have a bunch of stupid guys on a beach and a person with the “wrong” kind of body walks by, and they yell terrible and mean-spirited things at this person who is minding their own business,

Why is everyone’s response to ignore and even justify their behavior rather than shouting them down?

Why shouldn’t everyone be allowed to relax and have fun at the beach or the pool?

Why is it only fun for those whose bodies have been deemed attractive enough?

Why shouldn’t fat people and skinny people and people with scars and stretch marks and ladies with saggy boobs and men with round pot bellies and hairy folks and scrawny scarecrow guys and gals with arms and legs like Betty Spaghetti have a nice time too?

I think it’s rather boring when the only people who can go for a swim without feeling self-conscious and like they must keep covered up are young people with the “right” kind of body.

Shouldn’t we have gotten past the idea that the only people whose bodies should be seen are sleek, unblemished, photoshopped visions of pornographic “perfection?”

Shouldn’t the beach be a place where everyone can cool off, not yet another spot where only the hottest hotties are allowed?

Beach parties are fun

For those with the right body

Not so much for those

Whose bodies have been deemed wrong

Ignoring not an option

~Cie~

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 14: Not Your Fat Joke

If

I

were

me

sooner

than

I

believed I could be

Then I would have

Followed my dreams

And believed in myself

In spite of people telling me

That people who look like me

Are only allowed to be

The butt of jokes

Fuck that shit

I refuse to

Disappear

~Cie~

Note:

I wasn't quite sure how to do it, but I think I made the basic shape of a certain gesture 

NaHaiWriMo 2018 #8: Monkeying Around + The Fight Against Perfectionism

Notes:

Click the image to enlarge.

"So then I artistically blurred my photo to give a sense of moving back through time."

Nah. I moved my hand while the photo was being taken.

"But why would you want to use a photo like that? Any photographer worth their salt would delete it forthwith!"

I don't really consider myself a photographer. I'm a person who takes pictures because I enjoy it. 

This blurry photo isn't without its merits. It inspired me to create this Haiga of questionable quality.

Nobody is ever going to consider this to be a high-fallutin' work of art to rival the classics. But it is fun, and it illustrates the idea that you can make your mistakes work for you.

I have been battling perfectionism all my life. Embracing my mistakes is helpful for me. Perfectionism is an extremely destructive quality. I would like to share the ways in which it has harmed me from various perspectives.
In this post, I would like to share how physical perfectionism has caused untold harm to me and many others. Some of what I share involves my own perfectionism, and some of it involves the unrealistic standards which society imposes upon people.

On a physical level, we live in a society which demands that Number Twelve Looks Just Like You. We are supposed to aspire to a certain standard of beauty and fitness, and, if we fail to achieve such, we are deemed failures not worthy of even basic decency in the way we are treated by others.
However, rather than inspiring everyone to become super duper supermen and women, this attitude has a tendency to backfire. You end up with people who do not trust doctors because doctors continually shame them for their physical appearance or failure to be compliant with regimens that it may be impossible or intolerable for them.
So, instead of engaging in a program of regular visits to the doctor for preventative care and maintenance of chronic health issues, people avoid going to the doctor until they experience a critical problem. This helps no-one.
When my current doctor addressed my slightly elevated triglycerides (a common issue for diabetics) with "have you been indulging in treats?" I snapped. I said "I make twelve thousand dollars a year and generally eat only one or two meals a day. I eat what I can afford to purchase. I do not 'indulge.'"
In spite of the fact that this doctor is by far the most effective doctor that I have ever seen, I am considering going back to the guy who was burned out and had no fucks to give, because my current doctor has given me ample reason to mistrust her. The 'indulging in treats' bit is mere sprinkles on the body-shaming cake.
This doctor presented herself as offering a 'safe space' for larger people, and, during my first visit, appeared to live up to her promise. Thereafter, she suggested weight loss surgery and blamed my abnormal endometrial thickening on "obesity."
If you want your larger patients to believe for a second that you have any respect for them, you need to ditch the "o" word. "Obesity" is "other." "Obesity" is a pariah. "Obesity" is shit. "Obesity" is always said with a sanctimonious sneer. If you use that word, I do not trust you.
Abnormal endometrial thickening is correlated with a larger body type, but correlation is not causation. It is also correlated with being over fifty (guess I need to step into an age-regression machine), white (guess I'd better start tanning), and diabetic.
A larger body type is also correlated with type 2 diabetes. Again, correlation is not causation. I am inclined to think that abnormal pancreatic function is a strong contributing factor in both the tendency to gain weight and the endometrial hyperplasia. There may be a third factor which causes all of my endocrine issues. A heavy body type is correlated with endocrine issues, but it did not cause these issues. In fact, the reverse is true. None of my endocrine system works properly. It would be highly unlikely for me to have a thin body unless I were to become deathly ill, regardless of how little I eat or how much I exercise.
So, having a bench in your waiting room rather than just chairs with arms does not constitute offering a "safe space" for people of all sizes. I don't trust you, and that makes for an ineffective doctor/patient relationship, regardless of your ability to diagnose and possibly treat health problems.
People are not inclined to take care of things they hate, and that includes their bodies. While cleaning out my storage unit, I found numerous artifacts from the many years I spent trying to hate myself thin. Looking over the awful things I wrote about myself, thinking about all the money I spent playing a game that almost nobody wins, realizing that I caused wear and tear to my body equivalent to the harm done to it by the many years I spent working long hours at physically punishing jobs, thinking back on the times when I was sometimes spending five hours at the gym when I should have been spending that time with my son, I became extremely depressed.
To top it all off, none of this shit brought me to the goal of Magical Thinness, which would have won me the Handsome Prince with the Exactly Correct Body Fat Percentage, a billion dollars for every pound I lost during my incredibly successful "weight loss journey," fame and adoration of the masses, or anything but a far thinner wallet and a soul filled with self-loathing.
Thinspo is crap. Fitspo is crap. Dieting is crap. It's all harmful. None of it will bring you happiness, and it won't even bring you health. It will bring you self-loathing and turn you into an awful person that nobody likes.

Dieting is not about health. It is about perfectionism. The pressure to be perfect is purely for profit. Stop paying into a system that doesn't give a damn about you and thrives on your failure.

"In the long term, dieting is a spectacular waste of time for everyone except statistical unicorns." --Louise Adams

~Cie~

Obese is NOT A More Polite Way To Say "Fat"

bigfatscience

“Obese” is not a more polite way to say fat.

ok2befat

“Obese” is the word doctors use to deny fat people medical care.
Medical discrimination is deadly.
Most fat people do not want to be called “obese”.

skyliting

The Wii Fit called me obese in its cute little voice. I shut it off immediately, had a good long self loathe and haven’t played it since. It defeat its own purpose.

ragnell

There are polite ways to say fat. There’s adjectives that imply attractiveness, like full-figured and plump and chubby and such. There’s also hedging around the term that’s awkward but at least says that someone doesn’t want to have the same connotations fat does, so they’ll say “sizeable” or “large” “hefty” and basically a million ways to say someone is “Big But Not Because of Height.” Actually considerate people have come up with a lot of ways to describe people.
Obese is not one of those ways. Obese is a cold clinical term that says being fat is unhealthy, undesireable, objectively bad. It tells us that the person saying it thinks that they are being nice, but they are looking down on you and think that your body shape is a failure of some sort. And it has the weight of having a specified medical definition, meaning they are trying to present this as an OBJECTIVE FACT rather than merely their relative opinion of what constitutes a normal weight. Fat, on the other hand, is a matter of opinion. Fat and thin are used relatively, like “Lisa is fatter than she was years ago” or “One sister was thinner than the other.”
“Obese” is a WAY more hurtful term than “fat.”

wincestshippingtrash

THISSSSSSS!!!!!!!

I even wrote my doctor a letter about the use of the word “obese.” It isn’t that she tries to shame me into losing weight. She understands that my dumpster fire of an endocrine system is a major determining factor in my body type and DNA is responsible for the rest of it. However, she makes the mistake of thinking that “obese” is a neutral, clinical term. It is not.

Obese is not a neutral clinical term like “hypothyroid,” which means that my thyroid gland doesn’t produce enough thyroid hormone. It is not a neutral term like “diabetic,” which means that I have a dead pancreas floating around in my body being a useless piece of shit. It is not a neutral term like “menopausal,” which denotes a woman who no longer gets periods.

The difference between these terms and “obese” is that people in the medical profession don’t judge me as some sort of disgusting failure for being hypothyroid, diabetic, and menopausal. “Obese” is a word that is sneered and spat out like the person saying it just tasted something bad. “Obese” is an extremely loaded word.

I said that I would straight up rather be called disgusting and ugly than referred to as “obese.” The fact that the first description of me in a medical setting is going to be “obese, elderly woman” makes me not want to talk to any medical professional ever.

I further went on to say that “obese” is not even a human being. “Obese” is a pariah. “Obese” is a thing, not a person.

You can refer to my body type as large, heavy, big, stocky, chunky, or straight-up fat. Fat isn’t an insult, it’s simply an adjective.

Never refer to anyone as “obese.” It’s a gross, nasty, ugly word. It is dehumanizing. I would love to see it stricken from the lexicon.

I would also love to see people treated as people, regardless of their size. We sure as hell ain’t there yet, but I will keep fighting for it.