New website.

05Jun09

So…you may, or may not, have noticed that I have a new website now. It’s called The Fat Nutritionist. There’s not much on it now, but more is coming, you can bet your sweet bippy.

I’ve been blogging in some form since 2001, not counting the oh-so-stylish Geocities website I had in 1998. It’s been an interesting progression from personal blah blah blah and poetry and photography, to more HAES and fat acceptance stuff, to now, what has become my profession.

I’ve worked in nutrition for five years, at three different hospitals — everything from pushing carts of food around, to disciplining staff (ick), to consoling patients, to figuring out just what in the hell diet to give someone who had part of their intestines removed. And then for the last two years, I’ve been doing clinical nutrition (as a diet tech, which is sort of like a junior dietitian) in various areas (cancer, eating disorders, diabetes.) I’ve been teaching patients, reading peer-reviewed journals, reading charts, helping with research studies, eavesdropping on medical rounds, writing and editing teaching materials. And going to lots of meetings.

Anyway, for all intents and purposes, I’m a nutritionist, if not (yet) a registered dietitian. I figured I could damn well start acting — and writing — like it.

So, I hope you like the new site. I hope you find it helpful. And thanks to everyone for making me think hard.

Filed under: fat, fatosphere, nutrition   |  3 Comments

Holier-than-thou, and getting holier.

27May09

So, I just read this editorial-slash-book-review, or whatever it’s supposed to be. The most striking thing, to me, is the writer’s use of moralizing, sin-a-licious language:

In theory, I’m a food libertarian and don’t believe the state should take responsibility for curbing individuals’ greed.” [Emphasis mine.]

And her…colourful…use of hyperbole, which wouldn’t be entirely out-of-place in the opinion section of your local junior high student paper:

But it’s sad to watch already-chubby kids at the food courts eating hassock-sized cinnamon rolls, haystacks of french fries and stacked baseballs of ice cream. The kids may as well be wearing T-shirts proclaiming “Diabetic in Training.”

Whoa, Hoss, let’s tone down the outrage for a second there and consider things sensibly, shall we?

First of all, people don’t eat because they’re greedy. Greed, and the other deadly sins we hold so dear to our shrivelled, black hearts, has absolutely nothing to do with food. We eat because we’re hungry, or because something looks and smells delicious, and because we’re hard-wired to eat tasty food.

As much as is available.

This is a survival mechanism — because who knows when it’s coming around again, right? Particularly if you’ve ever survived a food shortage (or, the more likely case in North America, if you’ve ever survived a weight-loss diet.)

Hard to believe, I know, since humans obviously aren’t just animals who evolved from other animals, thus still having certain animal needs and certain animal behaviours. No, no — we’re all just greedy little fallen angels slavering with lust at the thought of buggering some poor, starving charity case out of his last can of Campbell’s Cream of Tomato.

So we can stuff it mindlessly down our gaping, triple-chinned maws…

Baconatorzzzzzzzz

Wait. Where was I again? Oh yeah, considering things sensibly.

Look. We’re human. We get hungry. Yes, we even crave and enjoy salt, sugar, and fat. Because those things (aside from representing two of the three existing macronutrients, and one of the most important micronutrients) are precious commodities to animals in the wild, and it makes sense to eat up as much of them as you can, and store that energy against a rainy day.

And, yes, becoming civilized little monkeys has changed our world, and that strategy is now a bit outdated. But the innate desires are still there. And yes, the food industry capitalizes on those innate desires and tries to manipulate our appetites for profit (want to talk about greed? *cough*)

But none of this should come as a big, nasty surprise to a society of educated consumers living in a rich country in the year 2009.

And none of this makes us greedy, gluttonous assholes — it makes us human beings.

The way to deal with this is not to point fingers at the fatties and shriek with moral outrage about their greed. The way to deal with this is not to conflate eating habits with body size, or to blame diabetes on those evil white foods.

Wacky as it may sound, the way to deal with it is to, first, calm the fuck down. And stop being such an asshole to people who don’t look like you. And stop attaching a moral value to food, or to health.

Maybe learn to take care of yourself with kindness instead of flagellation. You might find that all that hyper-processed stuff makes for a fun treat, but actual, ya know, food makes a far more satisfying and delightful staple. And you might learn to even enjoy it, rather than swallowing it whole out of some deranged sense of duty.

None of us, fat or thin, are such idiots that we can’t figure out how to eat appropriately for our bodies. And it really is okay to enjoy things that taste good.

It’s food. That’s what it’s for.

Filed under: bitchery, eating, fat, fat acceptance, fatosphere, food, health at every size, nutrition   |  8 Comments
Tags: fatosphere

The Depression Thing.

10May09

I would just like to take this moment to say: it appears that I have found an anti-depressant that works, for the first time in fourteen years of being depressed, and eight years of trying various medications.

I don’t think I write a whole lot about depression on this blog, because I fucking hate it. Hate it so much that I don’t even like writing, talking, or reading books about it, and that’s pretty unusual for me, a person who likes to write, talk, and read about absolutely everything. It just annoyed the living shit out of me so much I didn’t even want to acknowledge its existence. But yes. It existed. For a long, long, long time, and through much very expensive therapy, plus a whole hell of a lot of free therapy, a million crisis visits to the doctor, and about six different medications.

I have been feeling so different lately that it’s almost unbelievable. I’d started to think that depression was just The Way Life Was. But as you can (maybe) tell from the way I’ve been writing lately, I’m feeling much, much, much better.

Sort of like a new person.

I never thought I would be the type to say that, but here I am, saying it. I have some headaches and nausea, but good Lord, I’ll take them. Will I ever. It’s a ridiculously small price to pay for feeling normal.

I wake up feeling basically happy every single day. Can you imagine?

And I’m still working on my new website/business/awesome-thing. I have until June to get the damn thing up and running before there’s a maybe-possible-please-oh-God shout-out in the NYT from an interview I gave a while back. All systems GO.

By the time I turn 30, I will have figured out The Body Image Thing, The Eating Thing, The Depression Thing, The Dual Citizenship Thing, The Marriage Thing, and the What To Do With My Life Thing. Maybe not The Not Being Desperately Poor Thing, but still, I’m pretty pleased with all that.

Filed under: Uncategorized   |  8 Comments

It’s International No Diet Day, and I have something to say.

06May09

Alright guys, it’s International No Diet Day, and we absolutely must celebrate.

Me, I’ll be “celebrating” today by working in the eating disorders unit at the hospital. It’s work I’m more than happy to do, but I’m sad there’s such a need for it. To me, that’s what this day is about.

I hatehatehate to repost things — even though I don’t mind when other people repost things — just because it feels like cheating somehow. But, what the hell. I’m reposting the PSA that I made just over a year ago, featuring assorted members of the Fatosphere (plus a few of my absolute best friends), because it’s perfect for the occasion. If you’ve already seen it, feel free to skip. If you haven’t, I hope you enjoy it.

I did make one slight change near the end.

done

So, do something nice for yourself today. Smash a scale. Get a Yay! scale instead. Go buy The Book. Or this book. Go look at positive images of all kinds of bodies. Get a cool poster from NEDIC. Eat three square meals and dessert — without apologizing to anyone.

In short, change the fucking world by refusing to hate yourself.

Now, I want to quote something Marianne said, about whether giving up dieting really means just giving up:

Sure, it’s giving up. It’s giving up on the idea that I have to conform to an impossible standard to have worth. It’s giving up the damaging (to both physical and mental health) practice of dieting. It’s giving up the rage that gets turned inward when yet another diet doesn’t work.

Those are all things I can give up with absolute relief.

It’s taking on a lot of new things, too. Like the endless task of resisting cultural messages about the worth of women’s bodies. Like the responsibility of listening to your body and relearning its language when it comes to food and health and everything else, too. Like the strength to do things that you have been putting off (a la the Fantasy of Being Thin) and actually embrace living instead of postponing it.

It’s not the world’s easiest trade off. Body acceptance, no matter what size you are, is a contrary goal. Advertising and women’s magazines and popular culture is constantly telling all of us that we aren’t good enough, that if we try this one more product, we’ll finally reach acceptability. Body acceptance is hard work.

It’s work I’m glad to do, though. And I am glad you are here, doing this work, too.

I quit dieting nine years ago this year, and I can tell you, not dieting is not easy. It’s not easy in the same way passive resistance is not easy. It’s not easy in the same way exposing the truth is not easy. But, unlike dieting, it’s absolutely worth it.

Happy fucking International No Diet Day, everyone. Now let’s work on making it every day.

Filed under: body image, dieting, eating, eating disorders, fat, fat acceptance, fatosphere, food, health at every size, nutrition   |  7 Comments

So…here’s me in my underwear (NSFW!)

05May09

Er — Mom, Dad, you might want to skip this one, if you think it’ll make dinnertime awkward.

This is an early celebration of International No Diet Day, which is tomorrow. And, I just like how it came out. I didn’t retouch anything, except for (obviously) using the watercolor effect in Photoshop. The dimples on my thighs look like the dimples on my thighs. And I thought it might be useful as a positive image of OMGbesity, fattosity, fattitude, fatulation, whatever silly made-up word you like to use. And I’ve been thinking about how I’d like to be more visible now.

Filed under: body image, fat, fat acceptance, fatosphere, femaleness   |  34 Comments

All women are real.

01May09

I was reading the NAAFA blog’s latest update on the casting for a new TV show, and this stopped me dead in my tracks:

More To Love is by the same guys that do “The Bachelor” for ABC and is essentially the same show, except all the gals on the show are real girls with real curves.”

It pissed me off. And because this is my blog, I’m about to tell you why.

First, because it’s fucking patronizing.

Second, because it’s a sneaky little divide-and-conquer strategy, of the type commonly used to pit women against other women.

Third, because we’re ALL real women, you fuckwad.

There seems to be a common assumption that, if you’re fat and not particularly ashamed of that fact, you must, by default, HATE thin women, or find them ugly, or some other form of stupidness that can only be described as SOUR FUCKING GRAPES.

Not so.

I’m fat, and not particularly ashamed of the fact, and I also think thin women are just fine. I largely share the same aesthetic standards of my culture (with a few exceptions — most notably, the ones that allow me not to hate myself), and I often think thin women are just lovely. I also don’t feel particularly jealous, because why would I waste my time? They’re them, and I’m me.

I certainly sometimes sigh to myself wistfully about what it would be like to, say, have curly hair, or be blonde, or to be slender and model-perfect, but I don’t spend a lot of time on it. I recognize these moments for what they are: pure fantasy, a grass-is-greener kind of escape from reality. And then I go back to being me without a whole lot of fuss. I see certain pictures of myself, or put on a certain outfit, or flip my hair in a certain way that makes me think, “Yeah, other people are lovely. But I’m pretty alright myself.”

So then, why is it so impossible to believe that we can genuinely admire others, without simultaneously wanting to look exactly like them? We’re not all crazed bitches from some psycho-stalker horror movie here.

I’m going to steal your haircut, and then YOUR MAN. Fear meeeeeee.

ENOUGH already with all this real woman garbage. We’re all real women, for fuck’s sake — the thin ones, the pale ones, the dark ones, the hairy ones, the not-hairy ones, the short ones, the tall ones, the young ones, the older ones, the fertile ones, the sterile ones, and yes, of course, the fat ones. If anyone has the temerity to identify as a woman in this culture, I’m handing them over an Official Membership Card and inviting them to the pool party, since, you know, I’m a real woman and all. By the power vested in me, etc. etc. And because if you’re willing to put up with the bullshit women put up with every single day, then shit — you’ve earned it.

In closing, I’d like to say: you’re not fooling anyone, fancy-TV-producers-attempting-to-ingratiate-yourselves-with-the-fat-people-you’ve-used-as-the-butt-of-all-your-super-sophisticated-sitcom-jokes-for-so-long. You’re just pissing me off.

And you sound like a fucking squid.

Filed under: bitchery, body image, fat, fat acceptance, fatosphere, femaleness   |  17 Comments

Your body is your home.

29Apr09

This entry has moved. Click here to read it.

Filed under: body image, fat, fat acceptance, fatosphere, health at every size   |  16 Comments

Something.

29Apr09

Something is different about me lately, in a good way. I feel happy, and hopeful, and I even enjoy talking to people.

If I can just get over this residual anxiety about schoolwork, I’ll be golden.

I like being alive.

Filed under: Uncategorized   |  2 Comments

I’m basically done.

23Apr09

So…the only courses I have left to take are 1) related to my psychology minor, 2) a liberal arts elective, and 3) two chemistry courses I’m redoing. Because I super-suck at chemistry, but reallyreallyreally want to be good at it.

That means that everything directly related to nutrition and to my degree is basically done. I won’t be graduating until next year, but I’m basically done. This term, I finished off everything nutrition- and professionally-related. FUCKING AMAZING.

It is so hard to believe, somehow. I thought I would never see the light at the end of this long, dark tunnel, but here it is. The light.

She saw the light, and it was good.

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I suck at writing essays.

21Apr09

Here’s an excerpt from an actual essay I’m trying to write for my philosophy class:

So, okay. You got your labour, your work, and your action. And Hannah Arendt basically says they all suck, except for action. Action rules the school. Except — and here’s my fucking thesis, you a-hole — I think she might be wrong. Now, I don’t KNOW for sure that she’s wrong, given that she’s a famous philosopher and all, and who the hell am I, just some 30-year old undergrad who failed first-year chemistry and hates combing her hair, and also given that I did not read her book in its entirety, nor did I read anything else she wrote. But for the sake of this mandatory six-page essay, let’s pretend that I’m ballsy enough to think she’s wrong. HANNAH ARENDT, YOU ARE SO WRONG, LET ME SHOW YOU WHAT’S WHAT.”

What do you think are the odds that my professor will track me down and beat me up if I turn this in?

Filed under: Uncategorized   |  3 Comments

Terror.

02Apr09

Today, I have to give a HAES presentation at school. Even though I’ve done this a few times now, it still doesn’t get any easier. To be perfectly frank, I’m scared. So is my poor partner, who got dragged into doing this topic with me, but who has been pretty great about taking it in stride, including my incessant use of the word “fat,” which seems to make everyone around me palpably uncomfortable.

Here’s to hoping we don’t get tomatoes thrown at us.

Filed under: Uncategorized   |  5 Comments

Canadian doctor shocks the world by announcing that all fat people may not be deathly ill.

18Mar09

I’m running off to school, but here.

Stunning insights abound, such as:

Many people who meet the body mass index criteria for obesity “are really not that sick at all,” says Sharma, chairman for cardiovascular obesity research and management at the University of Alberta and scientific director of the Canadian Obesity Network.

‘Obesity was far less common when it was identified, and then obesity became this gigantic epidemic, with just the assumed outcome that everyone is going to be at risk for vascular disease and a whole bunch of other things,’ says Rachel Wildman, an assistant professor of epidemiology and population health at Albert Einstein College.

‘As it turns out, it seems not to be the case. There is at least a proportion of obese individuals who at this point don’t seem to be at elevated cardiovascular risk.’ Not only is their risk fairly minimal, ‘in some instances it’s better than individuals who are normal weight.’”

‘Treating obesity, like treating any other medical condition, takes resources, you never get it for free and if you’re asking people to do things where you know off the bat that most people are likely to fail then you’re really setting them up for disappointment,’ Sharma said.”

Wildman, of Albert Einstein School of Medicine, agrees that it may be time to deal with the obesity epidemic in a more nuanced way. For one thing, efforts to get everyone to lose weight are falling flat.”

Also, some good quotes from our friend Paul Ernsberger.

Really, I don’t mean to snark. This is a good article, and I’m glad to see the issue getting media play. It’s just that it all seems so fucking obvious.

Filed under: Canada, fat, fat acceptance, fatosphere, health at every size, weight loss   |  12 Comments

Dietetics students and weight bias.

10Mar09

Future dietitians are not immune to anti-fat bias, according to this new study from the Rudd Center (read the full journal article here.) I have to say, it doesn’t exactly surprise me, given that other health care practitioners show the same bias. But that doesn’t mean it’s not disappointing, all the same.

My professors at school, most of whom are RDs, have been, in my opinion, pretty open to both hearing about and talking about weight bias. At least one faculty member is an overt health at every size activist, and several others have mentioned the idea in passing, or have directly encouraged my own activism. My classmates have always been very receptive to the idea when I’ve talked about it, though they’re not all necessarily on the bandwagon. I’ve certainly never been laughed off the stage or shouted down, or even substantially criticized, when I’ve brought it up. I don’t know if my school is more progressive in this area, or if it’s a Canadian thing, but I’m grateful.

Filed under: dietetics, fatosphere, health at every size   |  2 Comments

To you, a supplement.

06Mar09

This is the final image I ended up submitting for my class:

My classmates did look a bit surprised when I explained how nutritional supplements were being used just down the street.

Filed under: Uncategorized   |  1 Comment

My neighbourhood.

04Mar09

I live in on the edge of Moss Park.“‘Moss Park has long had a reputation among Torontonians as a notoriously downtrodden and dangerous neighbourhood.’ It is home to several homeless shelters.” The ironic part is, the block where I live must, at one time, have been home to extraordinarily wealthy people. There are several huge 19th-century mansions, and the neighbourhood northeast of me “comprises ‘the largest continuous area of preserved Victorian housing in North America.’”

I live in one of the mansions — you see, the larger houses were chopped up into cheap apartments or rooming houses, and are now home to some of the city’s poorest people. And the smaller houses, Victorian workers’ cottages, have now been renovated by some of the city’s richest. Strange how things work out.

The end result is a neighbourhood that is an interesting patchwork of rich and poor, and horrifying evidence of poverty and desperation against a backdrop of past splendor. It’s the water I’ve swum in and the air I’ve breathed for the past two years, and it has become almost normal to me. There are prostitutes working the street next to my house by nine most weekday mornings, certain people’s howls have become familiar to me, there is a sound like a single gunshot each Sunday morning, families of raccoons have drama in my alleyway, there is an old German Shepherd named Chaos, there are discarded hypodermics below the sewer grate, and there are discarded bottles of Ensure and Boost scattering the sidewalk.

This last thing is what brought me out of my almost comfortable familiarity when I was thinking about a photo assignment I had to do for school while walking home yesterday. Jeffrey had informed me months ago that people were drinking Ensure on the street as they made their way to The Beer Store, and we speculated that it must be a good source of nutrients for people who are food insecure and/or heavy drinkers prone to nutrient deficiencies.

Nutrition supplements like Boost and Ensure are things we learn about in school in the context of clinical nutrition. We learn about sick people in the hospital, or perhaps the frail elderly, depending on supplements like these to prevent wasting — never do we learn about the use they are put to in neighbourhoods like mine (which is also my school’s neighbourhood, as it’s less than half a mile down the street from me.)

So when I kicked an empty bottle of Boost out of my way on the sidewalk as I walked home from class yesterday, wondering what to take photos of for my project, the idea came to me: I’d take pictures of the reality of my neighbourhood.

(And yes, I contacted the drug squad about the syringes I found. There was an entire package of spoons, straws, hypodermics, and condoms laying there. The shoes on the power line were directly outside the vacant lot where all this was found, next to the suitcase.)

Filed under: food insecurity   |  11 Comments