What Goes In Must Go On
Why are fat people fat? It's not all that mysterious if you look at this woman's story. She got miffed at Morgan Spurlock's film about how he got fat eating McDonald's for a month -- and she showed just the opposite could be true:
The problem with a McDonald's-only diet isn't what's on the menu, but the choices made from it, she said."I thought it's two birds with one stone -- to lose weight and to prove a point for the little fat people," Morgan said. "Just because they accidentally put an apple pie in my bag instead of my apple dippers doesn't mean I'm going to say, 'Oh, I can eat the apple pie."'
Spurlock, who turned his surprise-hit movie into a TV show on the FX network, isn't talking about Morgan or the many other McDieters who have criticized his film and found success losing weight by eating healthy foods off the McDonald's menu, said his publicist, David Magdael.
One person went so far as to make her own independent film about dieting at McDonald's. "Me and Mickey D" follows Soso Whaley, of Kensington, New Hampshire, as she spends three 30-day periods on the diet. She dropped from 175 to 139 pounds, eating 2,000 calories-a-day at McDonald's.
"I had to think about what I was eating," Whaley said. "I couldn't just walk in there and say 'I'll take a cinnamon bun and a Diet Coke.' ... I know a lot of people are really turned off by the whole thought of monitoring what they are eating, but that's part of the problem."
As might be expected, McDonald's also objected to the impressions left by Spurlock's film. Walt Riker, the company's vice president of corporate communications, said Oak Brook, Illinois-based company is pleased -- but not surprised -- that some customers have lost weight eating only at the fast-food giant.
Spurlock's film "really spurred a backlash based on common sense," Riker said.
Morgan used nutritional information downloaded from McDonald's Web site to create meal plans of no more than 1,400 calories a day. She only ate french fries twice, usually choosing burgers and salads. Those choices are a stark contrast with those made by Spurlock, who ate every menu item at least once.
At the end of the 90 days, she had dropped from 227 to 190 pounds.
"It feels great," she said. "Because, the truth of the matter is that beauty is power, and if you're fat, or your overweight, then people don't really take you seriously."
Hmmm...that sounds familiar!
Here's a link to the fat-and-(supposedly)proud ladies railing on about yours truly and Miss Seipp, who responded with helpful diet hints for the overfed:
...thanks for calling me a "thin supremacist," because at this point "thin" anythying is pretty flattering. Now I would have pointed this out to you over there, but I see that the community rules don't allow real names or any favorable talk about weight loss. For the record, however, here are the cold, hard facts: I am not a pill-popping Hollywood anorexic, much as I appreciate that glamorous "Valley of the Dolls" image. I normally weigh, like in the headshot above, a relatively slim 130 pounds. When it's hot outside (which means I slack off on the daily 1 to 1 1/2 hour hike in the hills), and I indulge in too many second (and third) helpings, I can creep up to what I am now: about 142. So then I cut down on desserts and portion size and make myself get back in the old exercise routine before things get out of hand. Also, I'm a fidgeter, which helps, but not to the point where I can eat 3,000 calories a day, like I have been, without repercussions (2,000 calories is maintenance.) So there you have it, the amazing Silver Lake miracle diet! Do with it what you will...
I must say, I'm green with envy that only Cathy rated a Margaret Hamilton Photoshopped hate link -- perhaps because she wrote a whole column called "Fat Chance" for IWF, that started "I believe your right to overeat ends where my airplane seat begins." I tend to agree. But, I also think the fat-and-proud movement is doing women a disservice by promoting "fat acceptance" instead of healthy eating, exercise, and weight. (You can accept your fat all you want to, but that doesn't mean the rest of the world's about to.) Here's a terribly tragic photo, taken at an airport, by a friend of mine, of a pretty young woman (she looks to be about 23). I've blurred the face so she can't be recognized.
Come on, should she really be accepting her fat...or feeling terrified she's going to get diabetes...like, tomorrow?
The first time I saw a lawsuit against fast-fooderies I couldn't believe it - because McDonald's and Burger King had already been posting their dietary information in plain sight for years.
Radwaste at August 13, 2005 5:37 AM
Amy, actually a lot of fat/size acceptance advocates DO promote healthy eating and exercise. Their point is that it won't make everyone thin, but that it will make you healthier.
As someone who struggled for *decades* against my body type (I'm built like a little fireplug - 5'2" and 130 lbs) and made myself miserable in the process, I think there's something to be said for a peaceful (and healthy) coexistence with a body that will never look like a fashion model's (or even now, in my late 40's, like the gals on the Dove ads).
Personally, I hate most fast food (except for the basic Taco Bell tacos). I tried one of the McDonald's new salads and they'll do if nothing else is availble, but I can't imagine eating nothing but McD's for 30 days!
deja pseu at August 13, 2005 7:17 AM
If you strain your ears a little, you can hear the thundering herd of people coming over to denounce you immediately for your insensitivity and discriminatory/Gestapo attitudes.
Dmac at August 13, 2005 8:14 AM
Yep, you'd think people never heard of the conservation of mass and energy. I eat McD's almost daily (rescue me!) and maintain a lithe 6'2'', 165. And metabolism doesn't get any slower than mine. I just exercise maniacally and don't eat like a pig. And did I mention my buff, sexy runner's legs?
Paul Hrissikopoulos at August 13, 2005 12:52 PM
I'm 41 years old and I never recall seeing so many fat people everywhere as I do now -- but not just a few pounds fat, but obese. In Paris, for example, there are a few plump women but not a whole lot, and obese women are rare. Why? Because they move. They get up off their asses and get across town. Last night, I was tired, but I ran three miles at 7:50 pm. Why? Because my life, as a writer, is largely sedentary, and the coffee shop where I often write is blocks from my house. If I don't drag my ass off on a run, it will spread. Sure, I would rather have stayed home and read, but you do what you need to do. See Cathy's note above on the Silverlake Diet and Exercise Program. In my opinion, non-medical as it may be, there are very few people who have some weird medical reason they simply MUST remain fat. People are just lazy about diet and exercise.
Amy Alkon at August 13, 2005 4:33 PM
There's also a difference between "I need to lose 10-20 pounds so I can look fab in my jeans" and being morbidly obese. Every time that you haul out the adage of controlled diet and daily exercise, someone bring out the "well, I know a fat guy who runs marathons." The overfat marathoners are few and far between.
Precious few people have an idea of what goes into their mouth (!!!) Speaking as a formerly 200-pound size 16 woman, I know losing weight is hard. But if people spent as much time doing something about being fat as they do whining about it, there wouldn't be a weight problem in the U.S.
slackmistress at August 13, 2005 5:46 PM
"Precious few people have an idea of what goes into their mouth (!!!)"
And, in observation of the law of conservation of energy, precious few have an idea of what comes out of it!
Radwaste at August 13, 2005 7:28 PM
What I basically have a problem with is the moralizing about weight. Yes, there are people out there who don't give a shit and who sit around eating bags of potato chips, remote in hand (and not all of them are fat). But speaking as someone who grew up in a time and a family that regarded anyone bigger than Twiggy as "fat", and that being fat was due to some elemental character flaw or moral weakness, I'll admit I react a bit to words like "lazy" and "whining." There has rarely been a time in my life where I haven't been actively trying to lose weight. In fact, I spend several years battling anorexia and bulemia trying to be thin enough to be "acceptable."
Here's my analogy: imagine that you are told you have to build a house, that your primary value as a human being will be judged on how well you build this house, yet the only tool you're given is a wrecking ball. That's the conundrum a lot of fat people find themselves in, and what low-fat, low calorie diets are to our bodies--wrecking balls. Amy, it's interesting that you mention the French; I've been recently reading "The Fat Fallacy" and it really rings true to me. The book talks about how the French eat far more dietary fat (though smaller portions) than are currently considered "healthy" here in the U.S., and yet are thinner. Yes, they move more (and that's a whole 'nother discussion* about our auto-dependent lifestyles) but they also don't deprive themselves of food, and as you mentioned, don't have the skytrocketing weights that we do.
*In my perfect world, we could all walk or ride our bikes to work, and no one would have to work more than 40-hour weeks so they'd have plenty of time to get away from the desk and get active. Kind of like the French.
deja pseu at August 13, 2005 7:29 PM
The idea of a “Fat Acceptance” movement makes me cringe because the only thing it’s going to do is create nothing mockery and derision. The reality is that some people will accept you if you’re fat and some people don’t. Civil rights strategies aren’t going to change that.
To say obesity is caused by some genetic predisposition or to say it’s the product of poor habits does not explain why there’d suddenly be more of it. Human nature doesn’t change that quickly and genetics certainly don’t change that quickly. I think the main reason is simply that packaged food manufacturers have been attempting to make food taste better and they’ve succeeded. The result is not only that it’s more fattening but that people tend to eat more of it. A person who eats unselfconsciously now is therefore more likely to get fat than someone who ate unselfconsciously 20 years ago. The need to be self-conscious to stay healthy places a new burden on public health.
Any health initiative that’s based on stigmatizing fat people is not only wrong but doomed to failure; if stigmatization could make fat people lose weight there wouldn’t be any fat people. The public health emphasis should be on positive measures such as promoting better eating and more physical activity.
Robert Fiore at August 14, 2005 1:32 AM
"[T]he only thing it's going to do is create more mockery and derision." This is what happens when you change the way you're going to write a sentence in the middle of a sentence.
Robert Fiore at August 14, 2005 1:35 AM
Great that you are reading The Fat Fallacy. Part of the problem, admittedly, are all the diet gurus telling people to eat low-fat food. If I have a bowl of Grape Nuts and skim milk at 8am, I want another at 8:30am. Fat makes you full. If I have a donut at 9am, I'm not hungry until 3pm. And a donut has about 240 calories, I believe, if you eat the yeast-filled kind I do. Which brings us to portion size...and on...and on. Another good book -- Diets Don't Work -- which tells people to eat only when they're hungry. I don't know about you, but when I have some huge portion on my plate, it generally gets put into a doggie bag and brought home -- for another meal...or two! It really is very simple -- what goes in, that isn't exercised off...goes on. But if you eat a diet that includes dietary fat, and not a lot of processed food, and if you don't load up on carbohydrates, and you exercise, you can probably eat, not diet. Which is what I do.
Amy Alkon at August 14, 2005 11:14 AM
Yeah, I tend to go with the "palm-sized" serving size when it comes to chicken, fish or meat, and get two or three meals out of most restaurant portions.
I tend to have low blood sugar, so have learned to stay away from sugar, except maybe a bite or two of dessert or a small cookie or two after a meal. If I ate nothing but a donut at 9am, I'd be having a serious blood sugar crash by 11 (light headed, shaky, sweaty and CRANKY). So I have some protein with every meal too, which keeps my blood sugar levels pretty steady.
deja pseu at August 14, 2005 1:08 PM
The key, I've found, is combining serious fat with the sugar. In my unscientific opinion, it seems to negate the sugar up and down effect.
Amy Alkon at August 14, 2005 1:35 PM
I love being fat! I have been all my life. My whole family is. Generations of us. I love that Americans are getting fatter. The most powerful country in the world, and if we're all fat, maybe fat people will soon rule the world. That would be great!
Better fat than French!
Jane at August 15, 2005 5:06 AM
Jane thinks fat is attractive. She thinks xenophobia is attractive, too. Jane is ugly.
Amy Alkon at August 15, 2005 8:16 AM
Xenophobia ugly, fat phobia pretty. My fear bad, your fear good. I guess it depends on who you talk to, or choose to listen to. Or what you've been taught to believe.
Jane at August 15, 2005 4:10 PM
I'm not afraid of fat people. If I were, I'd never leave the house, since so many people are huge these days. What I do, in my column and on my blog, is try to tell the truth, best as I see it (based on the best data I can find, not simply opinion or feelings or Jane's ideas about what's right). The truth is, being fat tends to mean a person has health problems and fewer opportunities in life and in love. You can choose to ignore that fact, but it makes it no less a fact because you do.
Amy Alkon at August 15, 2005 4:50 PM
I didn't say fear of fat people. I said fear of fat. It's not the same thing.
Jane at August 15, 2005 6:36 PM
Fear of fat? What, you mean, like, fear that somebody's overly ample butt cheek is going to sneak through my window and smother me in the middle of the night?
Amy Alkon at August 15, 2005 10:47 PM
Perhaps more like fear of what "fat" has come to represent.
In the 19th century, fat meant wealth, power, robust good health. Common diseases such as T.B. ("consumption") were accompanied by "wasting" or extreme weight loss. People with some fat reserves were observed to often have better survival rates of serious illness.
These days, fat has come to represent lack of self-control, lower-class status, sloppiness, stupidity. Fat people are presumed to have these attributes even when in reality they don't. I think it's these attributes that we associate with fat that people fear and consequently express as disgust. We talk a lot about health, but I think there's a lot more than that going on when people react with such vehemence against fat.
deja pseu at August 16, 2005 7:05 AM
It's like comparing "Monique's Fat Chance" and Peter Griffin from "Family Guy". You wish the world think this, but they tend to think this. Whenever I see overweight people, to the extreme, I just feel sorry for them because they look so unhealthy. And I feel the same way when I look at Mary Kate Olsen. Just find the happy medium people, because the extremes are just gross.
Lia at August 25, 2005 11:59 PM
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