National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance

ridiculousity:

Fat activists protest diet industry
Monday, August 2, 2004 Posted: 10:42 PM EDT (0242 GMT)

NEW YORK (AP) -- Unashamed of their size, fed up with fat jokes, and angry at the national obsession with dieting, overweight activists are mounting a feisty protest movement against what it calls the medical establishment's campaign against obesity.

"We're living in the middle of a witch hunt and fat people are the witches," said Marilyn Wann of San Francisco, a militant member of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance. "It's gotten markedly worse in the last few years because of the propaganda that fatness, a natural human characteristic, is somehow a form of disease."

The association, known as NAAFA, holds its annual convention starting Wednesday in Newark, New Jersey, bringing together activists for social events and workshops on self-acceptance, political advocacy and the "fat liberation" movement.

"I hope we can be a viable force of sanity in the midst of hysteria," said NAAFA spokeswoman Mary Ray Worley of Madison, Wisconsin. "I've found allies in all kinds of unexpected places, but overall there's a lot of animosity. Some people act like obesity is the next worst thing after terrorism."

The convention comes as the movement is scrambling to counter federal government pronouncements that obesity is a "critical public health problem" costing more than $100 billion and 300,000 lives per year.

Jeannie Moloo, an American Dietetic Association spokeswoman who counsels overweight clients at her nutrition practice in Sacramento, California, empathizes with the activists' fight against bias, but says they should be wary of oversimplifying obesity-related health issues.

"Some people can be overweight all their lives and not end up with diabetes or heart disease or hypertension," Moloo said. "But the majority are probably going to develop one of these life-altering conditions."

Fat-acceptance groups were dismayed when federal officials announced last month that Medicare was discarding its declaration that obesity isn't a disease. The policy change will likely prompt overweight Americans covered by Medicare to file medical claims for treatments such as stomach surgery and diet programs.

"Obesity is not a disease," insisted Allen Steadham, director of the Austin, Texas-based International Size Acceptance Association. "All this does is open the door for the diet and bariatric surgery industries to make a potentially tremendous profit."

Most fat-acceptance activists endorse the concept of eating healthy food and exercising regularly, but they oppose any fixation on losing weight and contend that more than 95 percent of diets fail. They also decry the rapid growth of stomach-shrinking surgery; the number of such procedures has quadrupled to 100,000 annually since 1998.

Wann depicts bariatric surgery as "stomach amputation" that imposes anorexia on patients and exposes them to long-term risks. Kelly Bliss, a self-described "full-figured fitness instructor" from Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, predicts that future generations will disapprovingly look back on stomach surgery as "comparable to lobotomies."

Bliss, who coaches clients by phone and in fitness classes, subscribes to a philosophy called "health at every size" -- preaching that health, fitness and self-esteem can be achieved independent of weight.

"There's a war on obese people, and I'm treating the casualties - people whose hearts are being ripped out," Bliss said.

NAAFA and others have tried to combat what they see as rampant discrimination against fat people, but progress has been sporadic. Southwest Airlines, for example, resisted protests targeting its policy of requiring large passengers to purchase a second ticket if they can't fit in a single seat.

"People want to fight for their rights, but there's a lot of shame involved," Steadham said. "It takes a whole lot of determination to stick through it to the end."

A few cities, including San Francisco, explicitly outlaw weight discrimination. Michigan is the only state to do so, but its Civil Rights Department said only five of 1,696 job discrimination complaints filed in 2003 involved weight.

Walter Lindstrom, a San Diego attorney specializing in weight-discrimination cases, said overweight plaintiffs usually must prove that acts of bias against them are covered by federal laws prohibiting discrimination against disabled people.

"These cases are more difficult from a proof standpoint, and also because you're dealing with a very unpopular class of clients," Lindstrom said. "Juries are generally disgusted with your average size-related plaintiff. You have to get past that, and have them see the plaintiff as someone with a true medical problem."

Many fat-acceptance activists were heartened by this year's publication of "The Obesity Myth" by University of Colorado law professor Paul Campos, who contends that diet promoters, drug companies and weight-loss surgeons have whipped up an irrational panic over weight.

Campos shares many of the activists' views but says their effectiveness has been limited.

"The movement has found itself marginalized by drawing its membership and leadership from the far extreme of obesity," he said. "It will be more successful if it can attract the two-thirds of Americans who are being told by the government that they weigh too much -- the I-want-to-lose-20-pounds crowd who are starting to feel a certain amount of resentment from the constant haranguing they're getting."

my god their klondike bars are clogging their brains

[dani]

Oh my god, this is just ghey. I am sorry. If your fat your fat, your going to be made fun. That sounds harsh and by all means i'm not tryin' to be, but in one point in your life you are going to be made fun of for something.

I have always got made fun of for having a pointy ear, being called Spock. Oh nooo, lemme go freak out and start up a group of people with elf ears.

Bahh, all I have to say is suck it up or suck it in.

[masterofNone]

future radioactive zone.

[nycwriters]

*gets popcorn*

[Frieda]

ooh! a show! martini, anyone?

[nycwriters]

Yes please. It'll wash down the popcorn.

[Frieda]

just like old times.. here ya go!

[priceyfatprude]

I wonder what NAAFA thinks of the assholes suing McDonald's for making them fat?

It is time for me to pull out some images. Bear with me.

[priceyfatprude]

...

[daverbee]

Has anobody seen that movie "Supersize Me"?
Apparently, the guy who made it ate nothing but McDonald's meals every meal for a month and without getting the supersize portions he gained 20 pounds in one month. He said the more he ate it the more he craved it.
McDonald's is making people fat, but people are so addicted now they can't back away from it!
Still and all, it'd be better for them if they own up to the fact that their hands are the ones pushing those burgers and fries in their mouths.

[priceyfatprude]

That is my point. No one is holding a gun to your head, making you eat fatty foods.

The only things I can get @ McDonalds are the Bacon Ranch Salad, no meat; the yogurt parfait (you cannot get the larger size they used to have, naturally), and the new Fiesta salad, which you might like, Daver. It's like meaty nachos on your salad (no queso though). Everything else has hydrogenated oil. I have an occasional Happy Meal here & there, but I know the risks & I don't eat one every day. Less than once a month is more like it.

What would YOU monkeys do for a Klondike bar?

there's a difference between use and abuse, and anybody who sues mcdonalds for making their kids fat or unhealthy is completely irresponsible

they're selling a brand. they're not saying mcdonalds is healthy, they're saying it's good. it's not their responsibility to educate the public on the basic fundamentals of health.

any sensible, reasonable person knows better than to eat mcdonalds three times a day

this pro-fat organization is like what the simple life is doing for retards

it's fun to be fun and fat! we're proud to be unhealthy!
it's fun to ironically like things and avoid any real opinions! we're proud to be mindless!

[daverbee]

Point taken. And agreed upon.
I also saw somewhere that they did a study of the McDonald's salads and found that many of them had more calories than the Big Mac!
btw, I've been doing my best to get fat eating at Taco Bell. Not so much to sue them for a lot of money, oh no, I wanna sue them for nachos for life.

[Frieda]

i have a severe mcDonald's addiction.. the only addiction that's worse than that is my star trek addiction. my smoking habit doesn't come near those two..

i used to eat mcD every other day, i gained 8 kg. i eat there every week now, and i don't seem to be gaining more weight. then again, i am on a 3000 calories diet now.. i can handle a cheeseburger or two

[Coffee]

Ya...like meth addicts suing the medical establishment for saying meth is bad for them.

I AM A DIM A - Internation Association of Meth Addicts Denying Intelligent Medical Advice.





I saw Supersize Me. He pointed out that only 2 items on McDonalds menu did not contain Fat or Sugar. One of the salads if you don't use the dressing, and water I think.