Re: this.
Dan Savage does occasionally give lip-service to the idea of not discriminating against people based on their size and weight. But at the same time, he comes back again and again to statements that are not backed up by evidence, such as:
And if Ms. English—a 400 hundred pound woman—stops eating drive-through garbage, starts exercising, and eats a few more vegetables, she’s going to lose weight. Period.”
Actually, Dan, it’s not period. No one knows this beyond a shadow of a doubt — not you, not a doctor, not even Ms. English. This is not a foregone conclusion. I know it sounds good. I know you think you know it. I know it’s everything you were raised to believe as a child and had reinforced at every turn as an adult, but take a deep breath and consider, for a moment, the possibility that everything we believe is not necessarily true. Period.
He returns, repeatedly, to the phrase “morbid obesity” and the risks supposedly caused by it. But those of us involved in fat acceptance, especially those of us interested in Health At Every Size or who work in health care, are well aware that there is still debate in the scientific community about those risks — whether they are caused by fat, or whether there is a third cause responsible for both — hell, whether they exist at all — because, guess what, scientists are vulnerable to cultural bias like everyone is, and they can skew their own studies on accident, or come to conclusions that aren’t actually supported by their own data.
In the past, he’s given questionable advice on how to handle a spouse’s weight gain:
Open communication means revealing your thoughts so the other person can take action. Which sometimes means saying, ‘Unless you take up jogging and lose 35 pounds, sweetie, I’m going to have a hard time being sexually excited about you.’”
He also continually draws a line — a line that doesn’t exist — between “acceptably fat” and “unacceptably fat”:
There’s a difference between big or or heavy or stocky and morbidly fucking obese. Ms. English weighs 392 pounds. Thats unhealthy and unsustainable. Her health risks are legion.”
Is there a difference? Does he know what it is, and if so, can he point to any evidence, anywhere, to show that “morbidly fucking obese” people can lose weight and keep it off safely? And that, if they do, those “legion” health risks will suddenly disappear?
(Incidentally, I think I have an idea what the “difference” really is, and it has something to do with Savage’s own unexamined prejudices.)
He speaks as though the issue is proven beyond a reasonable doubt — and he seems to refuse to make the connection between the popular health stereotypes of obesity, and their use in the social discrimination against same. The two may be different concepts, but they are far from separate. So to advocate one (ending discrimination against fat people) while practicing the other (repeating stereotypes about fat people’s health) is giving me a bad case of cognitive dissonance.
To get to the point about there, in fact, being fat people with bad health habits — possibly even, gasp, fat people who are over their own set-point weights due to behaviour and environment — yeah, those people exist. But I don’t know who they are. I couldn’t point them out in a crowd. Could you? Could Dan Savage?
And is he right, that, for this particular cohort of fat people (aka “bad fat people”), following popular advice for weight loss is suddenly, magically, going to work? No. If anything, people who have poor health habits should be encouraged to examine their lifestyles and make sustainable changes in the direct pursuit of health, not weight loss as a proxy for health.
And that advice — get this — can be equally applied to everyone, fat or thin: eat a nourishing diet that you enjoy, engage in comfortable and fun physical activity, and deal with any health issues through interventions specifically targeted to those issues — letting your weight settle where it will. Some might lose weight, some might gain weight, and many, many others might stay the same. No one can know, beforehand, who those will be, not even the individuals themselves.
As a brief personal illustration of anecdotal nature, in the last year I’ve undergone a significant lifestyle change (the real kind, which has nothing to do with pursuing weight loss, in which my whole life and its routines were simply upturned.) My situation changed, and my eating/exercise habits changed along with it. My weight loss has been a whopping ten pounds or so, and I’ve settled at a weight that is still so high, it’s not even on most BMI charts, and is within the highest grade (3) of “morbid obesity.” What if my husband now suddenly found me unattractive? What would Dan have to say about it? Would he suggest I take up jogging, wipe the sweat from his brow, and call it an honest day’s work?
Now, I realize he’s a relationship columnist and all that, which is to say, he’s not the be-all, end-all of — well, anything, really. But when we see people, especially people who speak in front of an audience, refer to the same tired old chestnuts about “morbid obesity” and “health risks” as irrefutable fact, and speak of weight loss as though it’s destined to work, without question, for all people above X weight — and should, in fact, be sought as a way of keeping one’s spouse’s sexual interest — well, then we have to talk back. And it’s not always going to be pretty.
The funniest part in all this is Dan’s strange assumption of the role of martyred dissenter:
No, you certainly can’t say that you’ll lose weight if you stop eating fast food, get more exercise, and eat more vegetables. It’s true, of course, but you’re not allowed to say it.”
Apparently I missed the memo that “eat vegetables and exercise more!” is no longer the accepted position on matters of weight. Don’t be fooled: it is. And not only are you “allowed to say it,” you’re allowed to say it everywhere, to anyone, in any way you want, despite there not being a shred of evidence to support it, despite that weight loss as an intervention has failed — spectacularly, unequivocally.
How do I know? If it worked, no one would be fat, and this entire discussion moot.
Filed under: dieting, fat, fat acceptance, health at every size | 2 Comments
I think Dan ought stick to things he knows, like cock rings, and leave his two cents out of discussions involving any kind of thinking outside the box commercially paid scientists have drawn for us.
No doubt. I find his column entertaining and I read it pretty regularly, but he’s really annoying and wrong on this issue.