"Imagine a world where permanently changing the color of your skin became safe and affordable for everyone; government-sponsored even. Would the ability to (safely! affordably!) change your skin color solve racism?
"Body size is influenced by lifestyle habits, but far more by genetics, biology and social determinants of health that are beyond our direct control.
"I’m adding this question to Blair’s philosophical musings because drawing a parallel between race and fatness can help folks new to the anti-fatness conversation understand we are not talking about whether we love our bodies enough or how to be more body positive. We are discussing a form of systemic bias, which intersects with many other, even more harmful and entrenched, forms of bias."
I pull these quotes to emphasize my discomfort with equating fat with race. Body size is influenced by lifestyle and social determinants of health as well as genetics. Those first two components are not a part of the race equation. I ask, therefore, that we are mindful when making the comparison. There are only two things that I absolutely cannot alter. I must stay black and die. The same is not true for absolutely every fat body.
Thank you Anita! I hear you and it is absolutely not a perfect parallel. I only wanted to emphasize the risks of trying to “solve bias” by erasing the visibility of the identity/trait people are biased against. But you are right, the experience of being Black in a racist society and the experience of being fat in a fatphobic society are not the same. I’m sorry for not delineating that more clearly.
I appreciate you and the work that you do, which is why I am here.
I choose my words carefully, a hazard of being a personal essayist who overdoses on poetry. "Bias" is a softball word as descriptor of society's historic and continued treatment of blacks. That may be at the crux of my bristle. Yesterday marked the 405 anniversary of humans kidnapped and brought to this country as chattel. Last night black former first lady Michelle Obama addressed the nation to endorse the person who may well be this nation's first woman and first black woman president. The irony is not lost on black people worldwide. Our fight to be considered human beings has been ongoing for centuries and as long as half the country hails the likes of Donald Trump as its savior the battle continues.
I take nothing away from the intensity of the fight we must lodge against diet culture and fat phobia. The battle is fierce and I, too, am in the trenches. My seemingly visceral response to what I likened as a parallel of black and fat is similar to your almost visceral response to straight sized women's attempt to own the GLP discussion.
Admittedly, I am sensitive. It is important to me that the black experience across the diaspora not get coopted. I call it out wherever I smell it. I thought I got a whiff here.
You were right to call it out! I feel lucky to learn from you and so appreciate you sharing your experience and wisdom in the comments section, always! Thank you.
I haven't read the second Blair article yet but as a fat person on Ozempic for type 2 diabetes I'd prefer that thin people not on GLP's stop thinsplaining it.
As Virginia and many others have said, it's not a magic bullet to societally approved levels of thinness, nor does it give people freedom from thinking about food/wanting to eat/etc. People have very different responses to it. I worry that it will actually increase anti-fat bias if people think that anyone who wants to lose weight can and should do so with GLPs.
Ozempic has worked wonders for my blood sugar and I am back at my adult setpoint weight (hint - I am still fat) but some of the brain space previously devoted to food is now devoted to working extra hard to manage my ADHD, because my ADHD meds absorb a lot more slowly and stuff takes longer. Since everything takes longer, I have less time or willpower for exercise, which makes my ADHD worse too. So it's sort of a wash in terms of mental noise.
To be honest, the biggest driver in reducing my "food noise", which I define as time spent thinking about food when I don't want to be thinking about food, is not Ozempic or therapy or ADHD meds or having my blood sugar under control. It's not having to cook or shop for anyone other than myself.
The thing Blair apparently doesn't get (I haven't read your source documents so I'm taking your word for it) is that every single fat person who runs the weight loss gauntlet (I refuse to call that shit a "journey") will still have the personal experience of 1) learning their body is somehow bad; 2) trying to 'fix it" themselves (and then trying harder); 3) failing eventually and then giving up or being offered the medical mercy of a drug with magically now no side effects, etc. At what age will this happen? Do we do it to the plump breastfed baby? Or the growth-spurting seven-to-nine year old, as would have for me if I'd only have had to go through it once? Thirteen? After their first child? During the sedentary job years? After menopause? And then when the drug stops working (as those of us who have repeated the "try harder" cycle without benefit of pharmaceuticals for for than 3/4 of our lives are sure it will), how is the ante upped? It's still, in every single case, maltreatment of individuals via pathologizing their very lives, and it will still create the hellish damage that stripping someone of their inherent dignity and right to embodied joy does. The damage will be done by the very offering of a solution to the non-problem.
Here's the thing: I refuse to see my body habitus as an illness.
"It's still, in every single case, maltreatment of individuals via pathologizing their very lives, and it will still create the hellish damage that stripping someone of their inherent dignity and right to embodied joy does... I refuse to see my body habitus as an illness." THIS. Thank you.
Brilliant coverage of a divisive topic, Virginia! Thank you. I am increasingly concerned for the people being offered to take these meds who are significantly underfeeding themselves already. They absolutely don’t need to “turn down food noise,” not that appetite (which is what “food noise” is — a life-giving bit of information from our bodies) should ever be denied. I’ve had to call a doctor and say, “Wait, my client eats too little already!” and insist on vital sign/lab monitoring if they choose to take the drug. Why aren’t we instead talking more about the effects of decades of starvation on health and well-being — and focusing on nourishment for all bodies?
I recently read Meg Elison's short story The Pill, and now I think about it at least once a week in relation to Ozempic discourse because it discusses so much of this. It's available online and definitely worth the read.
I always hoped, and still do hope, that the Ozempic conversation will help us ask some deeper questions about how we experience hunger. Ozempic is a chemical (ok hormonal) intervention that changes how people behave and feel. When the intervention is taken away, the effects are reverted. To me, this raises questions about whether there is something up with those chemical pathways in the first place. And even if nothing is strictly broken just out of sync with our current environment, we really should be asking why hunger is so hard to control even with external intervention.
Do we even all experience hunger the same way? Or is it like other human internal experiences, such as anxiety or depression, where some of us can cope more than others not because we are better people but because our chemical insides are different?
By shifting the emphasis from desired effects away from thinness to our experience of hunger we might see a whole new world of hurt and opportunities for intervention.
So, imagine a world where everyone is not bothered by all the "food noise". We eat when we want to and that's it. There's enough food for everyone. It's affordable. It's accessible. And there is not a looming threat of premature death for eating it. Can letting go of dieting help us get there? Yes. Can some nutrition education help us get there? Yes. Can Ozempic help us get there? I think so, because we need different interventions for different people.
This is a good way of thinking of it. I'm on Ozempic for type 2 diabetes, and my experience of it is that my experience of hunger is more like it was when I was in my 20's or 30's than during my late 40's/early 50's when perimenopause made it harder for me to regulate my blood sugar with diet and exercise, despite being at a similar weight, diet and exercise levels.
"Imagine a world where permanently changing the color of your skin became safe and affordable for everyone; government-sponsored even. Would the ability to (safely! affordably!) change your skin color solve racism?
"Body size is influenced by lifestyle habits, but far more by genetics, biology and social determinants of health that are beyond our direct control.
"I’m adding this question to Blair’s philosophical musings because drawing a parallel between race and fatness can help folks new to the anti-fatness conversation understand we are not talking about whether we love our bodies enough or how to be more body positive. We are discussing a form of systemic bias, which intersects with many other, even more harmful and entrenched, forms of bias."
I pull these quotes to emphasize my discomfort with equating fat with race. Body size is influenced by lifestyle and social determinants of health as well as genetics. Those first two components are not a part of the race equation. I ask, therefore, that we are mindful when making the comparison. There are only two things that I absolutely cannot alter. I must stay black and die. The same is not true for absolutely every fat body.
Thank you Anita! I hear you and it is absolutely not a perfect parallel. I only wanted to emphasize the risks of trying to “solve bias” by erasing the visibility of the identity/trait people are biased against. But you are right, the experience of being Black in a racist society and the experience of being fat in a fatphobic society are not the same. I’m sorry for not delineating that more clearly.
I appreciate you and the work that you do, which is why I am here.
I choose my words carefully, a hazard of being a personal essayist who overdoses on poetry. "Bias" is a softball word as descriptor of society's historic and continued treatment of blacks. That may be at the crux of my bristle. Yesterday marked the 405 anniversary of humans kidnapped and brought to this country as chattel. Last night black former first lady Michelle Obama addressed the nation to endorse the person who may well be this nation's first woman and first black woman president. The irony is not lost on black people worldwide. Our fight to be considered human beings has been ongoing for centuries and as long as half the country hails the likes of Donald Trump as its savior the battle continues.
I take nothing away from the intensity of the fight we must lodge against diet culture and fat phobia. The battle is fierce and I, too, am in the trenches. My seemingly visceral response to what I likened as a parallel of black and fat is similar to your almost visceral response to straight sized women's attempt to own the GLP discussion.
Admittedly, I am sensitive. It is important to me that the black experience across the diaspora not get coopted. I call it out wherever I smell it. I thought I got a whiff here.
You were right to call it out! I feel lucky to learn from you and so appreciate you sharing your experience and wisdom in the comments section, always! Thank you.
I haven't read the second Blair article yet but as a fat person on Ozempic for type 2 diabetes I'd prefer that thin people not on GLP's stop thinsplaining it.
As Virginia and many others have said, it's not a magic bullet to societally approved levels of thinness, nor does it give people freedom from thinking about food/wanting to eat/etc. People have very different responses to it. I worry that it will actually increase anti-fat bias if people think that anyone who wants to lose weight can and should do so with GLPs.
Ozempic has worked wonders for my blood sugar and I am back at my adult setpoint weight (hint - I am still fat) but some of the brain space previously devoted to food is now devoted to working extra hard to manage my ADHD, because my ADHD meds absorb a lot more slowly and stuff takes longer. Since everything takes longer, I have less time or willpower for exercise, which makes my ADHD worse too. So it's sort of a wash in terms of mental noise.
To be honest, the biggest driver in reducing my "food noise", which I define as time spent thinking about food when I don't want to be thinking about food, is not Ozempic or therapy or ADHD meds or having my blood sugar under control. It's not having to cook or shop for anyone other than myself.
You are just such a fabulous writer.
The thing Blair apparently doesn't get (I haven't read your source documents so I'm taking your word for it) is that every single fat person who runs the weight loss gauntlet (I refuse to call that shit a "journey") will still have the personal experience of 1) learning their body is somehow bad; 2) trying to 'fix it" themselves (and then trying harder); 3) failing eventually and then giving up or being offered the medical mercy of a drug with magically now no side effects, etc. At what age will this happen? Do we do it to the plump breastfed baby? Or the growth-spurting seven-to-nine year old, as would have for me if I'd only have had to go through it once? Thirteen? After their first child? During the sedentary job years? After menopause? And then when the drug stops working (as those of us who have repeated the "try harder" cycle without benefit of pharmaceuticals for for than 3/4 of our lives are sure it will), how is the ante upped? It's still, in every single case, maltreatment of individuals via pathologizing their very lives, and it will still create the hellish damage that stripping someone of their inherent dignity and right to embodied joy does. The damage will be done by the very offering of a solution to the non-problem.
Here's the thing: I refuse to see my body habitus as an illness.
"It's still, in every single case, maltreatment of individuals via pathologizing their very lives, and it will still create the hellish damage that stripping someone of their inherent dignity and right to embodied joy does... I refuse to see my body habitus as an illness." THIS. Thank you.
Brilliant coverage of a divisive topic, Virginia! Thank you. I am increasingly concerned for the people being offered to take these meds who are significantly underfeeding themselves already. They absolutely don’t need to “turn down food noise,” not that appetite (which is what “food noise” is — a life-giving bit of information from our bodies) should ever be denied. I’ve had to call a doctor and say, “Wait, my client eats too little already!” and insist on vital sign/lab monitoring if they choose to take the drug. Why aren’t we instead talking more about the effects of decades of starvation on health and well-being — and focusing on nourishment for all bodies?
I recently read Meg Elison's short story The Pill, and now I think about it at least once a week in relation to Ozempic discourse because it discusses so much of this. It's available online and definitely worth the read.
Part 1: https://escapepod.org/2022/11/03/escape-pod-861-the-pill-part-1-of-2/
Part 2:
https://escapepod.org/2022/11/10/escape-pod-862-the-pill-part-2-of-2/
Ooh thanks for sharing
I always hoped, and still do hope, that the Ozempic conversation will help us ask some deeper questions about how we experience hunger. Ozempic is a chemical (ok hormonal) intervention that changes how people behave and feel. When the intervention is taken away, the effects are reverted. To me, this raises questions about whether there is something up with those chemical pathways in the first place. And even if nothing is strictly broken just out of sync with our current environment, we really should be asking why hunger is so hard to control even with external intervention.
Do we even all experience hunger the same way? Or is it like other human internal experiences, such as anxiety or depression, where some of us can cope more than others not because we are better people but because our chemical insides are different?
By shifting the emphasis from desired effects away from thinness to our experience of hunger we might see a whole new world of hurt and opportunities for intervention.
So, imagine a world where everyone is not bothered by all the "food noise". We eat when we want to and that's it. There's enough food for everyone. It's affordable. It's accessible. And there is not a looming threat of premature death for eating it. Can letting go of dieting help us get there? Yes. Can some nutrition education help us get there? Yes. Can Ozempic help us get there? I think so, because we need different interventions for different people.
These are much more interesting questions than Blair explored!
This is a good way of thinking of it. I'm on Ozempic for type 2 diabetes, and my experience of it is that my experience of hunger is more like it was when I was in my 20's or 30's than during my late 40's/early 50's when perimenopause made it harder for me to regulate my blood sugar with diet and exercise, despite being at a similar weight, diet and exercise levels.
YES!!!!!!! <3