This is a blog that deserves a song on a tiny violin. Example from the latest post: "Thin privilege is being seen as girlfriend material by a guy you like."

She then goes on to complain that thin guys don't want to date overweight women. Well, duh. That's not "thin privilege", that's obvious.

Smart guys are not interested in dumb women. Super-attractive guys are not interested in plain women. Thin guys are not interested in fat women. Exceptions, yes, but the general rules apply, and everybody knows them.

If anything, being fat is better than most other problems, because you can actually change it, if you want to badly enough. Indeed, a very tiny violin.

Seems to me that "privilege," like "oppression," is one of those words that means only what its user wants it to mean. Thus watered down, it means precisely nothing.

Which is too bad. Privelege and oppression do exist, but throwing those words about carelessly makes it harder to describe the plights of the real victims.

I just do not get this.

I met my great grandmother in the 1970s. I was shocked when I saw her eating butter by the spoonful. I have no idea how much she weighed, but I do know that when we took her to the doctor'w office. She couldn't fit through the front door. We had to go around to the side through the double shipping doors.

My husbands grandmother was also morbidly obese.

I expect that both of these women weighed over 500 lbs.

Of course most people want to date slimmer, healthier people. We have an innate desire to find the best genes and frankly, our standards of beauty are highly correlated with good health.

If you want to attract a man, make yourself the best that you can be. Eat healthy, exercise, educate yourself, and nurture yourself in ways that bring you happiness. You will make yourself more attractive and thus be appealing to men that you find attractive.

I read some of that Tumblr. A lot of it is bonkers, and I stopped reading when one of the people said that there sure had been a lot of "fat-shaming" of obese pets recently...

"If anything, being fat is better than most other problems, because you can actually change it, if you want to badly enough. Indeed, a very tiny violin."

I'm not sure this is actually true.

Because of homestasis and many other factors, weight may in fact have a "tipping point" and without the best nutrition, the best advice, the best support, and a stress free environment it may truly be impossible for obese people to lose that weight, even for moderately obese people living as average people in today's society.

I'm never going to pick up the banner of 'thin privilege' like this loon, but I won't pretend that losing weight is truly very difficult for many people and not because of some lack of responsibility on their part.

Here's a thought, go outside and walk. Stop worrying about what everyone else thinks of you. Ugh...this makes me tired.

Just curious... does Aida eat grain-free puppy food?

There are a growing number of people who think the pet food folks have nutrition for pets as bass-ackwards as nutritionists for the FDA. Why do cats (obligate carnivores) need wheat in their diet? Carrots?

These folks feed their dogs kitchen food, but basically meat with a few scrap veggies (my vet even recommended carrots).

There is a really great site with information on the nutritional contents of pretty much every kind of cat food. I know this because my 3-year-old cat was diagnosed with diabetes 2 years ago. Insulin cost a fortune and was a huge hassle. Plus he was still peeing all the damn time and my husband was starting to suggest that we put him down, which I just couldn't do. We started him on low-carb canned food as opposed to grain-rich kibble as a last resort, and a few weeks later he no longer needed insulin. It seems really obvious in retrospect. Cats need absolutely nothing in their diet but meat.

Hmm. Now, apparently, "privilege" means, "lower risk in auto crashes, pursuit by criminals, and tendency to contract diabetes and cancer".

Don't care for yourself because of somebody else's opinion of you, lardass. Do it because nobody else can, and because only you can affect your quality of life in the very near future.

If you cannot walk, I damned sure didn't cause that.

No need. That's what my dog gets :) Well, the adult formula anyway :)

I switched my dog from kibble to a raw diet and her condition, energy levels and temperament have all improved markedly.
She's leaner and more muscular, more energetic and mellower.
People regularly stop us in the street to compliment her condition and ask us what we feed her.

The more I research this subject, the more I am convinced that starch-containing food that's been highly processed under high-heat conditions is no better for our dogs than it is for us.

We are two adults who eat similarly to you, Amy, and we simply shop for three instead of two when it comes to salmon, chicken, grass-fed beef etc.
She gets raw or rare versions of whatever we're eating, supplemented with high quality raw dog food so that she gets her complement of bone, viscera etc.

I don't believe in the distinction between 'dog food' and 'people food'. To me, there's only food, in varying degrees of freshness, quality and process.

Why wouldn't any living thing do better on a rotating diet of fresh, quality food?

The stuff marketed as dog food didn't exist a few decades ago. Even when I was growing up in the 70's and 80's, my mother didn't trust the stuff in cans and bags and fed our dog from our kitchen. He wasn't obese because he wasn't overfed, and got plenty of exercise, and lived to a ripe old age.