About Fat-Related Posts and the "War on Fat"

[peeplj]

The problem isn't that you talked to your brother-in-law. I'm glad you did, and it worked out well for both of you.

The problem is that you are assuming that every overweight person is potentially your brother-in-law.

When you force a label onto people who don't want it, that's a kind of tyranny.

And you feel like you're right to do that, and very much in the right.

And that's why the quote is so appropriate.

Again, I hope I have not offended by speaking very plainly.

--James

[Bloomfield]

The problem isn't that you talked to your brother-in-law. I'm glad you did, and it worked out well for both of you.

The problem is that you are assuming that every overweight person is potentially your brother-in-law.

When you force a label onto people who don't want it, that's a kind of tyranny.

And you feel like you're right to do that, and very much in the right.

And that's why the quote is so appropriate.

Again, I hope I have not offended by speaking very plainly.

--James

What's the label Jim is supposed to have forced onto people while being very righteous about it? "Brother In Law"? "Fat"?

The quote refers to government, not Jim.

[Flyingcursor]

Hey Jim my comment about Lewis had nothing to do with your post. I just like C.S. Lewis.

[susnfx]

The problem is that you are assuming that every overweight person is potentially your brother-in-law.

I don't believe he is, Jim. He was in a certain, specific situation. He spoke to one person--someone he knows well and cares about deeply. He specifically said he's never done it before or since, so he's not standing on street corners, yelling that people are fat and need to do something about it.

I've spoken to my morbidly obese sister about her weight, about counseling, etc., out of love for her. One of my brothers, on the other hand, one day said to her bluntly: "So, how much do you weigh?" There's love and concern and then there are people who don't care about you as an individual. If someone you love talks to you about your weight, don't be offended by it, but try to see the love. If someone you hardly know talks to you about your weight, tell them to take a hike.

Susan

[peeplj]

I don't know if you can see this--

Has anyone ever talked to you about being female? I mean, you might really be healthier if you would consider just being a guy....

From where I sit, one conversation roughly equals the other.

--James

[susnfx]

The comparison doesn't hold up, Jim.

Talks with my sister have been just that - a two-way conversation, with her bringing some things up and me bringing some things up. I didn't just start by blurting out, "Let's talk about your weight!" For instance, there was the time she refused to go to the grocery store with me. Since it was obvious I was baffled, she explained about her embarrassment at the stares and comments directed at her. This led to a sincere and caring discussion. I didn't preach, I didn't even make suggestions. I listened and tried to be supportive and loving. Talking with someone you love about their weight isn't necessarily preaching, and I know, in her case, it's been an outlet for feelings. At this point, I don't mention her weight under any circumstances unless she brings it up.

Susan

[StevieJ]

Working in London in the 1970s, I used to be able to recognize Americans by their taste in clothes. Now, living in Montreal, I can recognize them by their size. You just need to step across the border from Quebec to New England and you’re in a world of different body shapes.

While I sympathise with James’s case against persecution of fat people, it seems a little disingenuous to imply that for many people nothing can be done about it. Clearly, things have not always been this way.

It seems to me that the problem in the US today is one of your relationship with food. Like just about everything else in the modern world, food is dispensed by and controlled by powerful industries whose main concern is selling as much as possible to consumers rather than with consumers’ well-being.

BTW I’m not engaging in US-bashing here, because I know that the States are only leading the way and that the rest of the world is not that far behind. I was shocked to see so many obese children on my last visit to the UK. And I hear that even in France, were a good food is a matter of religion, the authorities are getting worried about the ballooning of young kids.

Not living in the US, and I don’t visit it that often, my first-hand knowledge of what is eaten there is admittedly limited. But here are some examples of things that I have found that simply astonishing over the years.

In the early 1990s I was sent by my then employer to spend a couple of weeks working in an office in Kansas City. At lunchtime, my colleagues would ask, where are we going to eat today? And on one day it would be Wendy’s. Everybody would pile into cars and drive for half an hour around the peripheral road to get there. The next day, it would be McDonald’s and another long drive. The next day, a different fast food restaurant. This kind of behaviour was so alien to me, I didn’t really want to believe that this is what they did every day, but as far as I could tell, it was.

In the evenings, people from the office took turns taking me out to dinner. I couldn’t believe the size of the portions. Most of the plates could have doubled as a toilet seat lids, and most of the servings could have fed two or three people. Apple pancakes sounded like a fairly healthy light snack to me. But then you get a gigantic portion, drowned in syrup and butter, the apples being a very sugary sauce, and the whole thing topped with a ludicrous plume of whipped cream. I won’t tell you about the chicken dishes, but towards the end of my visit I ordered a simple spaghetti with tomato sauce, thinking that this at least would guarantee a more modest portion. It came in a bowl that could have been a serving dish for a family of four.

I was staying in a hotel. Not a motel, a hotel. To me, a hotel breakfast should have been something to look forward to: individual pots of freshly made tea or coffee, nice tableware, a pleasant atmosphere to read the paper and start the day. Instead everybody was crammed into a tiny room containing flasks of coffee, a carton of not very fresh Danish pastries and bagels, and three televisions. Not a single item of food or drink (apart from the coffee) did not come from an individually sealed plastic bag or container. My fellow guests ate standing up, drinking out of Styrofoam cups, staring up at the televisions, and paying no attention to what they were stuffing into their mouths. Not that it merited paying attention to.

I don’t know what the average American family eats at home, but I have relations in Canada who live, it seems to me, in a very American way. Meals tend to be taken out of the freezer and put in the microwave. I don’t know if a fresh vegetable ever gets cut in their kitchen. There always big boxes of doughnuts lying around.

Their food cupboards are like backstore areas in a supermarket: literally dozens of boxes of different cereals and various snacks – all full of sugar, trans fats and God knows what else. The big food manufacturers must be laughing: give the customers so many choices they think they have to have them all, let them pay upfront and warehouse the stuff for you!

Restaurants fall into the same trap. At first I was always amused when asked what dressing I would like on my salad. I would ask, what do you have? The waitress would then recite a long list of exotic sounding dressings. I was amazed that a restaurant would offer so many choices. That was before I realized that it was merely the entire range of Kraft prepared dressings sitting in bottles on a shelf. It seems you have a lot of choice – but the choice is between lots of pretty bad products put up by one of two companies.

Even people serving often seem to be have lost any notion of good food. In my first year at the Catskills Irish arts week, I went to get a lunchtime sandwich at the local deli. After watching the sarnies being made, I said to the girl, do you only have processed cheese? She insisted that none of their cheese was processed: it was Swiss, Cheddar and I can’t remember what else. Very good, I said, can you make me a deli sandwich with no meat, just cheese? I received two slices of bread with about 10 slices of, yes, processed cheddar cheese, between them – almost 2 inches thick. You couldn’t bite through it without getting your teeth stuck. Apart from the fact that it tasted like sh*t.

20 years ago in Australia, I remember my amazement when a friend I was visiting told me that her American sister-in-law was really weird. I asked in what way, and she opened the fridge to reveal a couple of dozen cans of Coke. Wow! I said, that IS weird. Because to us, at the time, and to me still now, Coke was something that children might expect as a treat once a month or so. The idea of drinking some every day was unthinkable.

And this leads me to another observation, which is that it seems that business in America has realized that people like to be treated like children. And, it seems, they do. Sit down in any American downmarket restaurant and sooner or later a waitress will stop by to ask, in a tone that I would consider appropriate for talking to a five-year-old, “Now, is everything okay here?”, or “D’you want some more syrup on those pancakes honey?” (I appreciate the attention, but I would also appreciate some acknowledgment of my status as a grown-up.)

Now children, of course, don’t get to decide on many things in their lives. So, treat people as children, get them to like it, and they won’t complain when you all you give them is sweet, fatty food that five year-olds love. Things, incidentally, that make you fat. To beam with satisfaction at a huge portion, without thinking any further about it, seems like the reaction of a child.

Anyway, I could probably go on for pages more with similar observations, but it all boils down to one thing, basically: I think that’s modern Americans, and soon most of the rest of the world, have let food corporations take control of their diet and, by extension, their bodies.

Why do people put up with this? Beats me, and I’m just glad to be living in a place that is a long long way behind the rest of North America.

Steve

[Flyingcursor]

Good post Steve. Damn nice to have an outside observation made without rancour. But do we really "put up with it" or are we caught up in it?"

[missy]

Steve - there ARE some of us that don't live that way.........

Having a food allergy in the family, we didn't do much in the way of processed or pre-prepared food for years. I had to make just about everything from scratch, so that I could substitue for milk. I did find things such as breads, etc. that didn't contain milk, but for the most part, "already made" was off limits. Thank god for PNB or the kid would have starved at lunchtime.

We also always had a garden (until I moved 7 years ago, but the ex still has it). I have NEVER been able to cook a pea yet - the kids eat them all off the vine. I once caught Noah with a small bowl of salad dressing, sitting in the middle of the lettuce, eating a "salad". I hate store bought tomatos.

We do the occasional sugar - but it's all home made stuff for the most part (baked goods are almost IMPOSSIBLE to find milk free).

Once I started back to work, I would cook huge meals on the weekends, and freeze portions for use during the week. I'd get three meals out of a roast. I have a lot of old German recipes that use leftovers. We are big fish eaters, and I absolutely cannot STAND batter fried fish (Noah will easily polish off over a pound of salmon on his own!).

Tom does most of the cooking now - since he's home. We do the occasional pizza now that Nate is gone, but that's the extent of our "fast food". I bring leftovers from the night before for lunch at work.

Anyway - we aren't ALL McDonald's addicts.

[emmline]

I won't argue with Steve's observations. There's got to be truth there. The flip side is that I believe it's these very practices in the food industry that have led to the increasing availability of alternatives to standard grocery store fare. It would be hard for me to live anywhere that didn't have a good natural foods market such as Whole Foods, or Wild Oats, or others which I don't know the names of. The fact that the little local health food store, which used to be the only alternative has been replaced by these larger chains suggests that it's not only the ex-hippie stragglers who are going for better choices.

For a while what happened was that after shopping at Whole Foods, I'd go in Giant and think yuck at every endcap. Lately though, our local Giant and Safeway have been fighting back with their own brands of organic stuff and more ethnic choices.

As for eating out....yeah, I don't do too well at places like Denny's or Bob Evans. Which means I have to spend a lot when I do eat out.

[peeplj]

Well, Shannon and I do try to eat right, and these days we cook at home far more often then we eat out.

However, this is not an option unless you're at least middle of the middle-class: eating at home is orders of magnitude more expensive than getting fast food.

Also, the time it takes to cook and clean is a serious investment itself. The job I have now allows me enough time off to really help with such things; it's the first I.T. job I've ever had where you actually knew what time you were likely to come home every day.

When you're already down to four or five hours of sleep a night, losing another hour or two of sleep just so you can eat at home no longer seems like an attractive option.

That said, home cooking makes for wonderful meals! For those who have the time and money, it's the way to go.

--James

[cowtime]

Steve's post made me think of the documentary "Supersize Me" where nothing was eaten BUT McD for a month. By the end, he was in horrible shape, serious major organ problems. Here's the link if you haven't seen it-
http://www.supersizeme.com/home.aspx?page=aboutmovie

[pfdolan]

Food can become an addiction for some and like smoking and drinking, it can make you unhealthy and turn you into something people have a hard time being around. Doesn't make you suddenly a bad person or anything, and certainly most people who, by strict definition, are considered 'overweight' don't really fall into this category. However, that said, it still isn't polite nor should it be acceptable to be overtly hostile to those who may have that lifestyle.

[Redwolf]

As for the cost of cooking at home vs. eating out at fast food places, it kind of depends on how you shop and how you cook. My average grocery bill for a family of three for a two-week period is right around $100. That includes breakfasts, lunches and dinners, as well as such necessities as cat food, kitty litter, cleaning supplies, etc. That works out to roughly $7.15/day. By contrast, it costs the three of us about $10 to eat out one meal at Taco Bell (being vegetarians, our fast-food options are somewhat limited)...and that's for just one meal.

But there are trade-offs. We have made lifestyle choices that allow one of us (me) to work at home, which means that I'm available to plan menus, shop and cook (I devote a couple of hours every pay period to menu planning, list-making and grocery shopping. The rest of the time I rarely set foot in a grocery store unless there's an emergency item I forgot to get). That means we have less disposable income than most other couples our age. We don't use much in the way of pre-prepared "convenience" stuff...essentially, I'm a whole-foods, from-scratch cook, with the exception of certain things, such as prepared stocks for soup, canned beans, and packaged breakfast cereal. That means I really have to devote attention to my weekly menus and allocate sufficient time for food preparation. Tony and Johanna take food from home for lunch rather than eating out (or, in Jo's case, buying school lunches). We don't schedule much in the way of early evening activities, because dinner time is family time in our house (like everybody, we sometimes are forced to eat on the run, but we try to keep it to a minimum).

The basis of our diet is whole grains, legumes, and fresh vegetables, supplemented with soy and natural dairy products. I do a lot of ethnic cooking (Indian, Thai, Mexican, Italian, Lebanese) and homemade soups (my personal specialty). Even so, I'd say my average per-dinner prep time is around a half hour...not too bad in our "pressed for time" society!

So it's doable, and it can be very inexpensive, but it does require certain sacrifices in terms of time and labor that doesn't suit all lifestyles.

And I still have a weight problem!

Redwolf

[Azalin]

Yeah, I seldom eat out myself because I'm completely broke these days and I end up buying home made mini-meals at the grocery store for like 3$. I drink juice and sometimes eat some salad with the stuff. I also often eat sandwiches, which end up being only 2-3$ of "material". I got to admit I don't cook, but I don't think saying you have to eat out "because cooking is expensive and takes time" is a good excuse if you want to eat healthier than fast food. There are many cheaper and healthier ways than eating fast-food.

Now, I wish I could cook and also I wish I wanted to invest the time in it because those tuna sandwiches (with Mayonnaise of course) and grocery meals are getting on my nerves after years and years eating the same type of stuff

By the way my ex-girlfriend was cooking, and cooking very well. She'd prepare great meals. But that was a problem, actually, because I always ended up eating too much. Usually, people who cook make lot of food, and love to share it. Since I'm weak minded on food, when I see food on my plate, Ive got to eat it. She also loved deserts with chocolate and ice cream, too, and I'm just crazy about that stuff (that's why I never buy any, I would eatit all in one day). I was gaining some weight but then we broke up and I'm down a few pounds again. Phewwww!