Continually amazed and bemused....

So, after reading various blogs condemning MeMe Roth (and I'm sorry, why not spell your name Mimi, since that is how it is pronounced) I decided to go to the website and watch the whole uproar.

"Is it OK to be Fat?"

*sigh*

All I really got for my troubles was a headache. No, MeMe Roth doesn't really have any qualifications, and her compatriot is a woman who went on a diet successfully. And the opponents are a fat chick and a 'plus-size' model with an eating disorder. Neither side really had stellar qualifications. Yes, they had a dr stand up in the middle of the whole yelling mess... but both sides had points.

Yes, being fat isn't healthy. But some people have a harder time losing it than others. And Fat people should not be discriminated against. (My experience with being fat was that it made me invisible, seriously. Better than a superpower ever could).

Yes we, as a nation, are fat. But dieting is not the answer. And while the Fat Acceptance movement has some wonderful ideas, you should definitely love yourself, and love your body as it is, being overweight does put a tremendous strain on your body.

I am on a messageboard with a number of fat people. Its a food messageboard. There is one woman in particular who is fat, angry, and defensive. She says 'Yes I'm fat, but I'm healthy', at the same time, then in other posts, she lists numerous diseases she has, and claims that she can't exercise. Instead, she seems to spend all her time online. And, from what she's listed as her eating habits? BLEAH. A lot of the folks on the food board are FAT. Big-time. Pun intended. And they got angry when the host of the show to which the board is dedicated made a comment about the size of his viewership. The body size of his viewership. And expressed concern.

I'm also on another messageboard. A messageboard for 'healthy eating'. And this one seems to go the other direction. Measuring portions, weighing every week, exercising even when injured.

And I ask myself where the balance is. We used to be able, as a country, to be relatively fit, healthy, without counting calories, going on the Atkins diet, taking supplements avery second, drinking gallons of water.

Where did it go wrong? Did it go wrong when our food supply became loaded with corn syrup? Did it go wrong when we had less and less realistic images to measure against? When we stopped eating all parts of the animal? When we stopped doing outside things and got sucked into the depths of the Internet and cable tv?

And speaking of tv, look at some of your old shows...the ones that had a fat person in them. Fat Albert, Facts of Life, Railroad Junction (I think that's what it was called), even Gilligan's Island. The fat folks look normal now.

And that is odd. I'm not saying fat people aren't people. That they shouldn't be treated like people. But at the same time that we accept and love ourselves, at every size, we can still get back to a healthier size. And maybe we should look within ourselves and love the inner us.

Love yourself, for you are beautiful. And don't be angry. I heard so much anger on that show... anger from the woman who lost 200 lbs, anger from Meme, just so much anger. And maybe the first thing we have to do is stop the anger.