Money ? ? ?

Tom Gleaton

I have had the pleasure and the privledge
of being able to see the growth of some major
organizations that strive to change the public's
perception of fat. In this "one size fits
all" culture of only the last few decades,
it seems that the majority are having a problem "fitting".
Big studies indicate a slow "growing" trend in
a majority of the population. The term "average" is
being threatened because of this "outbreak"
the "obesity epidemic".

If enough people out there were not being insulted
every day by the "magic wand" mentality of the diet
ads, here comes a group of health professionals
screaming about the inevitable dangers of being
a few pounds over "average". I just wish that equal
time was given to the negative affects of "yo-yo
dieting". I'm no doctor, but I've had personal
experience knowing people who have "dieted" their
way up and well over 400 pounds! The problem
with our current concept of "weight-loss" is
a fundimental lack of concern, compassion, and
even personal regard for the safety and health
of the many well-paying "clients" looking for the "cure".
I wish this big health organization would have
done more studies about the weight-gain
phenomenon after dieting, and the amazing
affect that constant dieting has on a person.
I am really amazed that a layman like myeslf can
see so clearly how our current perspective of
dieting is so wrong, but "they" can't, or won't.

The fact that the word "maintenance" was only added
onto the whole dieting philosophy pretty recently
should tip people off to this incredible conspiracy
against fat. It is so disturbing to me that people are having
parts of their digestive system "partitioned" off, or
cut out altogether for the sake of "fitting in".
I am dumbfounded when I hear the same stories over and
over about how someone had that "surgery" about four or
five years ago, and lost about 60 to 80 pounds, only
to gain it back and more in a year's time, suffering severe
digestive problems to boot.

I talked to one woman in a
doctor's waiting room about Bigger And Better to have
her tell me about her own experience with this surgery.
She pointed out that while there was almost competition
to get her money in doing the surgery, now that she was
having real and serious problems with it, there are so
very few people who can reverse it. I don't know about
"La-La Land" where Carly Wilson is from, but while there
may be a "cosmetic surgery specialist" on every other corner,
there are still so very few doctors who can take some
of the serious complications and "fix" them afterwards.

For a long time I have felt frustrated that such sinister
things are being done to fat women's bodies all over this
country and there is not a damned thing I can do about it.
I did say women because I don't hear about nearly
the same number of men having this done to them as women.
I also don't hear about men having "liposuction",
or "laser skin re-surfacing" or "tucks" or "lifts".
I have waited for a long time to see when these extreme
and unnatural proceedures are finally put in their place
along with other "dark-age" medical practices like
the famous "ice-pick labotomy".
I have said over and over that just because something
is accepted in the field of medicine today does not
mean that it will continue to be regular practice when
the apparent risks start to out-weigh any forseen benefits.
I wish that the National Institute of Health would have
gathered up a bunch of women who had weight loss surgery
and compared the problems they experience and the
negative affects that it has on the body down the line.
I wish that they would survey how many doctors are
jumping at the chance to slice open some unsuspecting
woman's belly for a few thousand dollars versus how
many doctors have the ability or expertise to reverse
the damage when or if things do go seriously wrong.

It is not a misprint, I did say I used to wonder
how all this could go on. The title of this very article
is based on what the whole vicious dieting conspiracy is
being caused by at this very moment. It's money.

I started writing this with the intention of showing
my appreciation for the other size acceptance groups
out there. I entitled it "Money" simply because I
wanted to point out how we are so small scale
compared to the big organization that was created
in the year of my birth, 1969. Simply because we
have just started out, there is not much of a chance
that we are going to get hundreds of people "mobilized"
for the common cause of protecting the rights of fat
people. We never started doing this out of a desire to
make money, because we do have our "day jobs".
While we will admit to being "activists", we will
also quickly point out how even the fictional "Superman"
character needed a day job to do all of his good work
in a kind of "moon-lighting" way. We created a site, we
try to throw a party once a month and tell everyone
we can about how there actually does exist a real
"size acceptance movement" out there in the real world.

I wanted to get the message across that we actually don't
want anyone to send in "membership dues" to our size
acceptance "project". We don't feel as if we
have accomplished things on such a large scale as one
existing acceptance group. I wanted to stress how
much of a help it would be to us if everyone who was
ever inclined to send us any kind of "membership" would
instead buy a few stamps, and take a moment of time
to write to your representative, as well as your other
elected officials. Tell them you want "size" or
even "weight" to be added to the famous "list" of
things that are illegal to discriminate against.
Anyone who has filled out a job application knows
that one can't be discriminated against because of so
many social factors, but size is mysteriously missing
from that list. All too often it is just grouped
together with being "disabled" but just try to
have someone penalized for discrimination against
a large person under the blanket of just being "disabled".

I could only imagine if just a few hundred people suddenly
started to harass elected officials about size acceptance
and helping out the victims of the "last safe prejudice".
We get our reward just from knowing that we might have
helped out just one person in the whole year we have
been doing this. We would be so honored if instead of
being sent hundreds of checks for any kind of membership,
we were simply informed of a large letter writing
campaign inspired by our attempts to motivate people to do more.

I said earlier how I had just about figured out what was
keeping this whole crazy cycle going, and it is being
motivated by a pure, uncaring, uncompassionate greed
for money. It is no secret that the "diet industry" is
a multi-million dollar business year after year. They
stay open and keep collecting, and throwing back out
the most horrible messages about the "horrors of fat"
and their guarantee that their diet will work unlike
the 10 tried previously. If it is so important that
everyone "slim down" right away, and all of the products
out there work, then there would be no more fat people left!

Why don't people realize in all of this that the human
body was designed differently in different people?
Why is it not apparent that the diet industry is
ripping off hundreds of thousands of people, and
"fattening them up" in the process?
Money has been called the "root of all evil" and
upon seeing how doctors are so motivated by it
that they will be downright insulting to a woman
is pathetic and in my opinion twisted.
Using insults and appealing to a woman's
lack of self-esteem or confidence while
risking her health, comfort, and well-being
for the sake of a few thousand dollars is
so wrong in my mind. I wonder who agrees with me?

I would like to see people wake up to the reality
that dieting could very well be the main cause
of this obesity "epidemic". Decades of drugs,
surgeries, diet plans, and even jaw restriction
have probably caused such a dramatic and incredible
yet subtle and unnoticed gain for people in all
sizes of large, from all walks of life.

It is so tragic for me to see how over the years
many women have started out just over 200 pounds
and because of the constant effort to lose,
they have almost doubled their weight.
For all of their intelligence, technology, and
medical know-how, I'm amazed at how stupid the
medical community can be when it comes to diet
statistics slapping them in the face. People
are really being "grown" by their constant effort
to lose "just a little bit of weight".
Why can't those phd professionals see that
dieting and the pressure to be thin are causing
bulimia, aneorexia, and the yo-yo dieting
phenomenon? How can there be such a house-hold
expression as "yo-yo dieting" and yet this
phenomenon is still not recognized as a serious
threat to one's physical and mental health?
Money is the only answer I can think of.

Those medical professionals screaming at everyone to
lose weight because fat people are such a "burden" to
the health system should realize that they are
creating one hell of a monster problem.
It is no secret that our current concept of dieting
is seriously fouled. Only money could cause
such blindness to something so obviously wrong.
All of this goes to explain why we don't want to
collect a "membership". We feel that if we
could somehow inspire twice as many people to stand
up for fat rights instead of half as many people
being interested enough to send money, we have
overcome our "newness" and accomplished something
serious and worthwhile. With all of this "anti-fat"
energy coming from the whole diet industry (doctors
included), there needs to be an equal and opposite
perspective and viewpoint expressed by the real
people out there who are sick of being ripped off.
If a mechanic doesn't fix your car right the first time
the correction of the problem is expected to be included
in the price. I wish that the same could ring true
for the diet and medical industry. I'm sure that
the concept of accountability would give some
of the big companies peddling diets a new-found
sense of responsibility for who is paying their bills.
If any other industry was costing as much and failing
as badly as the diet industry we would be all over
them like tobacco peddlers!

So! Get a few stamps, find out a few addresses to those
people who are given the privledge to serve you
the people. Write a letter expressing how wrong it is
for fat to be such a safe-haven for prejudice and
discrimination. It wouldn't hurt if a few words
were even included in there telling how you feel
about making diet companies accountable for what they say.
Instead of being allowed to make rediculous claims and
promises, people trying to "cure obesity" should be
regulated and watched one hell of a lot closer than
the people who put out "Dexatrim" or "Metabolife" are now.
If those companies were made to hunt down the same
negative stats about their product and give
out that info in advertising, it would make a world of
difference in showing people how crash diets and
popping a few pills will never really work in the
"fight against obesity".

Some day all of those companies who feed off of
a woman's desire to be thin might finally be held
accountable for creating the massive health problems
existing because of them today. If the diet
industry was put through the same scrutiny as the
tobacco industry is right now, I think people would get
the shock of thier life just to hear what those
diet peddlers already know about their own product's
shortcomings. Let it be "clinically proven" one day
that these diets were partially to blame for "fattening
up" today's majority. I wonder if they would be made
to pay for the misery they have caused in their
blind ambition to make a buck.

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