This oh so enlightened and comprehensive report was released today in the US (can you taste the dripping sarcasm?) and was brought to my attention by the awesome Sociological Images website. Apparently “Adult obesity rates increased in 23 states and did not decrease in a single state in the past year… In addition, the percentage of obese or overweight children is at or above 30 percent in 30 states.”

But naturally, there is no consideration of socio-economic status, ethnic composition or age composition and no working definition of obesity etc etc.

*sigh*

It is good to see that most of the comments on this post at Sociological Images demonstrate considerable understanding of the moral panic surrounding the ‘obesity epidemic’. Although one poor soul seems to think that 11 year old girls with big boobs must automatically be obese. Seems this person hasn’t ever seen a fat woman with small boobs or a thin woman with big boobs. While I am personally in possession of a ‘rack of doom’, there are plenty of fat women with small breasts so it is erroneous to assume that big boobs = fat and vice versa. Hasn’t the blame for this phenomenon (young girls with well developed breasts etc) been placed at the foot of growth hormones in meat or some such?

Anyway, America - you score a big fat F.

Fat, fat, fat! Fantastic! Or should that be Fat-tastic?

Technically I am on midyear break from uni. I have finished my first semester units assessment wise but have yet to receive my semester grades (roll on July 17th).  I will be flying back up to uni on the weekend to attend another residential school, this time in Group Therapy. Apparently we will be leading and participating in group therapy. Sounds… interesting! lol. The assessment for this unit is pretty full on but I am only doing the one unit as it is my very last unit in what feels like has been the longest Masters degree known to human kind. I started in 2005 at Monash Uni and then took remission in 2006 when I was having trouble with my pregnancy and then had a newborn to deal with. I continued in 2007 and had only one unit to complete, which was a placement. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a suitable placement where I live (with an appropriately qualified supervisor who was willing to take on a student counsellor) so I had to apply for remission again. Come 2008 and I still couldn’t get a local placement (and couldn’t travel too far due to family commitments) and the uni refused to extend my remission any further. By the time I found this out (the refusal of extension) it was too late to transfer elsewhere for that academic year so I did another course that year (Grad Dip Social Science) and continued my Masters this year at the same uni I did the Grad Dip at. After all that, I am finally on the home straight and all going well, I will finish in November and officially graduate in April ‘10.

With the end of my Masters looming, I now have to consider what next. I am applying for a research degree. I don’t know how things are structured elsewhere but here you can do a research Masters or a coursework Masters. Mine is coursework. And despite being offered to Honours for my undergrad degrees, I didn’t do them. Which means I haven’t written a thesis in my entire academic career. I have done heaps of literature reviews and several research proposals. I have done more my enough (for my liking!) research methods units but I just haven’t done the actual research and haven’t written the thesis. So I have to apply for a preliminary program and prove myself. This basically means applying to do a research Masters and then, all going well, applying to upgrade to the doctoral program after a certain period of time. I am in the process of applying to do that - talking with potential supervisors, writing the proposal, filling in the application form etc. Naturally my area of research will be Fat Studies but I will be approaching it from a counselling and sociological stand point. I have a pretty good idea what my topic will be but naturally I have to have it approved -  something I hope will happen later in this semester (academic year for university here generally runs March until November).

On top of that I have the usual family thing going on (the husband and two kids - no dog), keeping an eye on my father (who lives with us), an extension being added to the back of our house, kids social, sporting and educational activities, the husband who travels a lot with his work and the usual run of winter sickness that seems to arise each year. Right now I have pink eye which seems to be alternating from one eye to the other, just as one heals, the other gets infected again. Makes reading, writing and taking photos (the things I love doing) rather difficult. Makes me appreciate my eyesight (glasses and all).

So who else out there is studying? What are you studying? Where are you at with it? Are you ever able to incorporate FA principles into your assignments or class discussion? Tell me about…

I have had a shit day. My two year old was diagnosed with a chest infection and an ear infection. Then I was diagnosed with conjunctivitis/pink eye in one eye. Then my daughter vomited all over herself, in her hair, in my bed and over me. Then I find out the two text books I purchased for next semester (at close to $200) as outlined on the university web site, are not the ones I need and that I cannot get a refund. I also have to purchase another text at the cost of $110. Then we had parent/teacher interviews at my son’s school which didn’t go well, to say the least. And then I see this atrocity.

Apparently stomach amputation, sorry I mean weight loss surgery, cuts the risk of cancer in woman by up to 42%.  I am so pissed by this that I can’t even string together a coherent response. I will leave it up to you, fellow fatties, to demonstrate suitable retort in the comments… do me proud.

I cringed when I first read in an email that BrylaneHome have started selling a new line of furniture and home accessories called ‘Plus+ Size Living‘. All sorts of potentially awful advertising campaigns appeared in my mind, not to mention the annoying sound of some extremely dire jingles ringing in my ears. But so far, not so bad. The products shown in the slide show accompanying this online feature all seem pretty good - bar the set of scales that have a remote you can hold up to your face so as to see your weight reading (fatties can’t see past their fat stomachs to see the reading on the scale of course). But other than that, the products seem legit, even if currently they seem rather limited to seating of various kinds and bathroom accessories (I wish you could get a huge bath towel of decent quality for $10 over here!).

Naturally, don’t read the comments following the feature unless you want to end up throwing something at a wall. Thankfully the poll they are conducting is currently all for items that make life easier, as opposed to those those that think such items ‘encourage an unhealthy lifestyle’.

ETA: My comment about fatties not being able to see past their stomach came from a place of wanting to encourage people not to worry about weighing themselves. There was no intention at all to denigrate anyone who can’t see the scale reading - I have no idea if I can or not, it has been that long since I weighed myself!

Well, well, well… who ever would have thought the results of this study would ever see the light of day?!

In short, a Japanese study of 50,000 people over 12 years has found that people who are overweight at 40 years of age, live longer on average than everyone else. So much for DEATHFATZ…

The researchers even had the audacity to discover that thin people had the shortest life expectancy, dying “six or seven years earlier than overweight people”.

The associate professor who led the study felt driven to point out that”People won’t extend their lives by straining to put weight on”. To be honest, I can’t see anyone striving to put weight on in order to live longer (other than the seriously underweight and those with certain eating disorders of course). And as FAers continue to point out, FA does not encourage people to go out and gain weight. We simply advocate accepting who you are and to not fall victim to social pressure to lose weight.

The study apparently also made the ever so startling finding that “the fatter a person is, the greater their medical expenses”.  Well hey guess what, higher medical costs are what happens when you have to go to eleventy hundred doctors before finding one who doesn’t blame every little sneeze and sniffle on your DEATHFATZ. That’s a no brainer really…

But yeah, LONG LIVE THE DEATHFATZ!