Eating Disorders, WOO!

I think I have finally pinpointed one of the things that bother me so much about the way America treats the skinny end of the eating disorder stick. I have made a mess of trying to express my sentiments in the past due to my love for twenty-paragraph rants, so I'll keep it short this time and spare you all the trouble:


MEDIA: Be skinny! Become a human coat hanger and mere sex object open to the commentary of anyone who sees your body or you are worthless. Also disappear as much as you can so you won't take up space! Pictures of fat people with no heads!
PARENTS: *Dysfunction'd*
CULTURE IN GENERAL: *Suuuuuck*
YOUNG PEOPLE: Argh must find something to control! Must be perfect! Must disappear!
MEDIA: More! More! Oh god, yes, MORE! You're all so naturally gazelle-like!
ANOREXIC PEOPLE: *faint*
REGULAR PUBLIC: Holy shit this is so fucked up. Somebody do something!
MEDIA: *Glamorizes disease even more with anti-anorexia awareness ads showing images of helpless, gorgeous models swooning virtuously before disgusting evil fat monster reflection in various mirrors*
ANOREXIC PEOPLE: Wow, we look SWEET when we're dying.
LJ: Come share this pro-ana on our site. Competitive dieting will lead to recovery or various other results!
MEDIA: No, no, don't be proud of the only accomplishment you feel you can call your own! We can barely stop romanticizing your plight for five seconds, but trust us, we actually want you to get well!
ANOREXICS: LOL.
CULTURE: *Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck*

Am I crazy, or is this actually still going on? This perverse envy of the noble sufferer business that was such a problem a hundred years ago. We openly admire and encourage pain, and recast sickness as virtue even as we pretend to speak out against it, then wonder why nothing seems to be helping. Way to treat the symptoms with a bigger dose of the disease, y'all.

"Not just different, my dear — prettier!"

Wow.

Remember that post I made yesterday about that stupid book that's all over the news? The one that teaches little girls that plastic surgery is painful and scary but will make you pretty so it's worth it?

Turns out the Onion already did it, and did it better.

Real life imitating satire, right down to some uncannily similar turns of phrase.

This Shit Is Bananas

There is now a children's book that explains that Mommy is kind of like a butterfly, because she starts out as a chubby bundle of inadequacy, goes into a cocoon of scary and risky surgical procedures, and comes out worthy of love. GIRL POWER!

Don't let TV and magazines get the jump on poisoning your daughter's confidence--buy her this book today and let her hear the bad news from someone she trusts.

Scarlett Johansson is a Fatty Fatty Fat-Pants

CNN just lauded Scarlett Johanssen for her role in bravely shattering body image stereotypes and being a role model for big girls everywhere.

Way to reinforce a stereotype and make young girls paranoid by randomly singling out people who actually fit in rather well and patting them on the head for at least showing up. THE PRECEDING STATEMENT WAS CLEARLY WRITTEN BY TERRORISTS. IN TRUTH, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A BACKHANDED COMPLIMENT AND OUR CULTURE IS TOTALLY HEALTHY.

It's always sad for me to see a reporter wax feminist and progressive while spreading the body-image distortion crap. At least they also gave screen time to actual sexy big girls like Tyra Banks and Jennifer Hudson, but c'mon!

Fly The Fatty Skies, Bitches

Check out the latest (and rather pitiful) bombshell dropped in the ongoing crusade against people fatter than your first girlfriend:

Fatasses Use More Airline Fuel, Let's Beat Them With Sticks!

No word yet on whether the 145 pound guy who sings along with his iPod in 35-A, the frazzled Adderall-popping soccer mom in 44-B, or her three future school shooters screeching at each other over a stolen Pokemon card in the aisles have been banned from flying due to the useless extra weight they add to the aircraft. One witch-hunt against groups of people we don't like at a time, people.

I am looking forward to seeing whether they plan to partially refund ticket prices for the many amputees, supermodels and dwarfs who fly the friendly skies. I'm sure the numbers will be totally fair and balanced.

Seriously though. I got a little bit of a chuckle out of it, but this latest chaw on the same old wad of tobacco is tasting kind of bland. I get the feeling that the amorphous 'they' who come up with this shit are starting to run out of steam. But if they're this desperate for a fresh angle, maybe they should find something else to talk about? A missing blonde child, perhaps? I'm sure there's got to be one of those somewhere in this country.

Speaking of tobacco, I read sometime recently, but failed to retain a link to, this delightful opinion piece from this dude who was waxing all 'persecuted white American male' because it's not socially permissible yet to bully people for being fat the way you can for smoking. Which makes me wonder what HE'S smoking that makes him think we chunks-o-plenty don't get all of that and worse, but whatever.

Apparently choosing to smoke and being a giant fatass are totally comparable now. Both are examples of deliberate moral failure deserving punishment, except you should pity a smoker just a little bit because he was forced to choose his addiction, whereas we fat people are all lazy and eat lard sandwiches and the fingers of unborn babies.

Also, hanging out with fat people causes asthma in children. I read it somewhere.



Apples and Oranges: two strangers suffering as one from the effects of a roundness epidemic.

...With Dissonance and Distortion For All.

Oh. My. GAWD. Did you guys see how DISGUSTINGLY FAT Britney Spears was on TV last night? Oh my GAWD, you guys. She looked like a caterpillar eating a leaf. Oh, my GAWD.

...This is all anyone seems to be able to talk about today. CNN even aired sound bytes of random people making fun of Britney's weight. She must have been SUCH A HEIFER to earn that much airtime with her horrible obscene flesh-folds, right?





Oh my gaaaawd. You can't even see her RIBS. I think I'd just KILL myself, wouldn't you? Oh my GAWWWWD.

Not that I care too much about defending some random pop star whose music I don't even listen to, but this kind of twisted never-good-enough bullshit is ego pollution. It's making EVERYBODY sick. I'm tired of people who get all fanorexic and start spraying diarrhea every time a movie star puts on ten pounds. Where do you idiots think all that shit lands?

I feel bad for all those little girls who go looking for a place in the world where they're wanted, and get told they're only welcome if they can still fit the same clothes for the rest of their lives. And even that's a lie, because by the time their numbers are acceptable, people will be making fun of their skeletons for being too bulbous.

Girls, I'm going to tell you a secret: there is no point at which the taunting stops if you have breasts in America.

We grown-ups sure love to dangle that carrot, though. The magazine covers at the supermarket checkstand last month were covered in paparazzi shots of the too-lumpy butts of bikini-clad starlets. This month it's about "Deadly Thin In Hollywood." AND THE PICTURES ARE OF THE SAME PEOPLE!

The prize cannot be won. Your best will never be enough. The game is rigged to keep you busy dancing like a trained monkey so you won't have time to become the first woman President.

Also, Soylent Green is made of people.

Women on the low ends of normal weight are showing off their bodies in a display of "fat pride" and pro-anorexics are airbrushing each other's photos to bring out the collarbones. Meanwhile EVERYONE is screaming about how OBESITY IS GOING TO NUKE THE ICE CAPS BY 2010!!!!!!!!

What's next, CIA photographs of the Britney Spears VMA performance with little red arrows pointing to the microscopic indendations where her waist bends during a high kick, indicating possible hideouts for Osama Bin Dyejob?

It's like I'm looking through the window of a funhouse just living in this fucking culture.

So fuck it. I'm not playing a game that's rigged and neither should anybody else who wants to stay sane. I'm going to war over this one, and my battle cry will be "BRITNEY SPEARS IS HOT!"



EDIT: Oh goodness, now CNN's acting all scandalized and humble. I especially like the part where everybody debates whether she's fat enough to deserve being crucified for appearing in public without a burqa. A+ for trying, guys! You'll be part of the solution in no time.

Freakonomics Worked For Me

The always-fascinating Freakonomics gang has organized a really interesting quorum to discuss in blog-post format the topic of America's obsession with the so-called "obesity epidemic*."

Aside from a couple of the contributors bringing nothing to the table except the stock babbling anybody who watches TV can recite in their sleep, it's actually worth a read.

*BRAAAAAIIIIINS!

EDIT: Junk Food Science is pretty cool too.

TIME.COM KNOWS ABOUT MY TORMENT

WHEN I GO TO THE GROCERY STORE IT TAKES ALL MY WILLPOWER TO RESIST THE URGE TO DRINK ALL THE SYRUP ON THE SHELVES. I WANT TO TEAR OPEN THE BOXES OF COCOA PUFFS AND RUB THE CRUMBLING CONTENTS INTO MY BLOATED SWEATY MEAT-FOLDS FOR LATER CONSUMPTION. I DON'T ACTUALLY LIKE CEREAL OR SYRUP BUT I AM FAT AND IT IS SIMPLE INSTINCT. AS A CHILD I EVEN HAD TO BE TRAINED NOT TO ATTACK PEOPLE DRESSED LIKE GIANT ICE CREAM CONES.

THANK YOU, TIME.COM, FOR CAPTURING MY HEROIC STRUGGLE ON FILM TO SHARE WITH THE WORLD. AND FOR NOT CUTTING OFF MY HEAD THIS TIME.

HEAVING ROLLS OF LOVE,
ASSMASTER JONES

Not Really A Fairy Tale

Carrying 227 pounds on her tiny 5'2" frame, the 51-year-old mother and wife could barely squeeze into her plus-size clothing.

...

"I was wearing a size 22 and getting my clothes at stores where the biggest size was a 24. I asked myself, 'Where are you going to buy your clothes after you get bigger than a size 24?'" said Twitchell.

Adding to her misery, Twitchell says her ballooning weight was also wreaking havoc on her 31-year marriage.

"We were literally just co-existing together, like roommates," recalled Twitchell.

"Friends asked my husband to e-mail them a picture of us. Later, I discovered that he had sent them an old photograph taken when I was much smaller. Even though he loved me, he was embarrassed at how much weight I had gained."

Afraid she would have to purchase clothing from online stores catering to larger women, Twitchell told her husband she'd had enough and was ready to make a change.

...

"I have a marriage again," says Twitchell, who recently retired and relocated with her husband from New Jersey to their new home in the mountains of western North Carolina.

"When I finally reached my goal (weight), my wedding ring was two sizes too big. I had already had it resized twice and the jeweler was hesitant that I might lose more weight. Rather than resize it, my husband bought me a new beautiful diamond ring and when he gave it to me he said this was a renewal of our wedding vows," she recalled.

Twitchell says her husband keeps telling people that he's got his wife back. This August, the couple will celebrate their 33rd wedding anniversary and they couldn't be happier.

"If I can lose 110 pounds, anyone can," says Twitchell.

Full Article here.

The tone of this story is disturbing. I'm happy that the lady was able to work hard and become healthier. That's a hell of an accomplishment. However, a person shouldn't have to be a size 2 to be acknowledged by her own husband as the woman he married.

Y helo thar, Fatty Fallacy #3! ("Your gigantic ass is to blame for everything you don't like about your life.")

The way she gushes about winning back her husband and being rewarded with pretty jewelry for getting skinny gives me the creeps. They have some obvious control issues to deal with, but CNN is spinning it like she's Cinderella finally getting to dance with THE Prince Charming.

And honestly, if that's one woman's idea of success, cool. Chase your joy, and all that. But I feel bad for her, and for every woman who reads this kind of condescending trash in hopes that it might hold the secret to living happily ever after.

OBESITY: THE GREAT DECAPITATOR

I really should be finishing the comic right now, but I had this great idea for a funny cartoon and had to get it on paper while the getting was good.



From the DA description: If real life were like American television, fat people would be walking around without any heads.

PS - I will make a high-calorie human quiche out of the first person who preaches at me in the comments about the so-called OBESITY EPIDEMIC. And then I will EAT the quiche and become EVEN FATTER, and the cost of your health insurance will RISE.

HA HA HA.