Over a year ago, Marilyn Wann and I had a falling out over the role dieters should play in Fat Acceptance. I said and did some things I regret and, as a result, she unfriended me on Facebook.

I was devastated. I shattered her faith and trust in me, and now the Mother of modern Fat Acceptance had cut me off.

In the video I did about Strong4Life, I mention at the beginning that I had been bullied for my weight, among other things, and at the bottom of the screen scrolls a list of the personality traits that made me a difficult friend and an easy target. The list reads weirdness, buck teeth, butt cut, talked too much, perpetually disruptive, annoying, ADD before ADD was ADD, poor impulse control, socially awkward and no internal censor.

All of these things are still true today (even the buck teeth and butt cut), but I have grown to accept that for most people, I’m not worth their time or energy. I’m like a sanity watchers vacuum.

As a highly-opinionated fuck-up with poor impulse control, I’m accustomed to people either really liking me (the few) or really disliking me (the many). Since I’m firmly in the former camp and like myself unconditionally, I don’t worry too much about the haters.

But when I began daily blogging in opposition to Strong4Life, I wanted to get as many Fat Activists as possible to join us. Over the past year, I have sent Marilyn sporadic messages on various issues in hopes of getting a second chance to work with her, which, in spite if myself, she always responded to courteously and respectfully.

This time, when I asked if she would like to join forces against Strong4Life she enthusiastically accepted, to my surprise, and the rest, as they say, is history.

She could have told me, in the immortal words of Vesta, eat shit and bark at the moon, and she would have been completely justified. Yet she set aside our rocky past in order to unite against a common enemy: corporate-sponsored bullying.

Since then, I have had the unique pleasure and honor of working shoulder-to-shoulder with one of the most inexhaustibly brilliant fat activists ever. The day she refriended me on Facebook well always stand out as a key moment of solidarity and unity in a movement chock full of disparate, passionate individuals.

Marilyn and I still don’t necessarily agree on the role of dieters in Fat Acceptance, but on this issue we are in total lockstep in our sole purpose of ending the shame campaign in Georgia.

The reason I bring this up is that yesterday on the blog, Jackie commented on our inclusion of Alton Brown, a man who has said horrible, hateful things about fat people, and continues to do so, as I noted at the bottom of the Call to Action.

While I do not deny that Brown’s opinions on fat people are terrible and that we should never cease to criticize those who belittle people for the size of their bodies, I will still happily accept Alton Brown as an ally.

Why?

Because if Alton Brown, a man with such a repugnant, vocal disdain for fat people, will speak out against Strong4Life’s fat shaming billboards, then it will clearly be an easy sell to convince the rest of the world that shame and stigma are harmful, reckless weapons in the War on Fat.

Alton Brown’s condemnation of Strong4Life is just further confirmation that Strong4Life must, and will, end Phase 1 of this campaign.

Once that happens, once the billboards come down, Alton Brown can also eat shit and bark at the moon, and I will waste no time calling him out for fat-hating nonsense. The other thing we must consider is that as activists, one of our jobs is to convince the Alton Browns of the world that Health at Every Size^® is a viable, evidence-based alternative to weight loss, and that fat people do not deserve to be treated like petulant children in need of a paternalistic douchebag.

If we are lure the Alton Browns of the world to the Fat Side, then we cannot treat them like enemies, but like misguided fools in need of reform. Accepting Alton Brown’s endorsement is not so much a scrapping of our principles as it is an admission that Brown is possibly just 95% misguided. By engaging with him, we hope to lower his misguided defenses a bit more, but for now, that’s enough for me.

Because right now we have an opportunity to take a stand as a community and send a message to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, and the world, that we will not tolerate the bullying and degradation of fat people.

For many political bloggers, we spend the vast majority of our time in our own little worlds, promoting our own little versions of the activism we believe in. We spend that time honing our opinions and crafting our viewpoints to persuade others to support our viewpoints.

In this mode of activism, it is vital that we draw boundaries and call out those who we believe have strayed from the core principles of our belief systems. I have done so myself, and will continue to do so.

But in this moment, right now, as we stand toe-to-toe with a $50 million hate campaign, we cannot afford litmus tests and purity pledges; we cannot demand fealty and submission to our positions; we cannot waste a single moment in deciding whether we will accept or reject Person X for their past transgressions.

My position on this may be totally misguided and far too idealistic for many, but I believe it is a necessary position if we are to achieve our goal of shutting down Strong4Life.

I don’t care if MeMe Roth herself decided that Strong4Life needed to end, I would still accept her inclusion into our organization. Does that preclude me from criticizing her past statements or telling her that she’s a completely clueless moron on 99% of her views? Absolutely not. But I am willing to lay down arms in order to add to this burgeoning chorus that bullying fat kids is just wrong.

From Prada to Nada is based on the Jane Austin novel, Sense and Sensibility. The premise is simple: two rich, young women lose their father and money, and have to learn to deal with life like every other working class person trying to make it in this crazy, mixed-up world. I was actually very surprised (and pleased) to see that not only were two women cast as the leads in this film, but their characters were Hispanic.

Try as I might, though, that’s the nicest thing I have to say about this film.

Right off the bat we have underlying messages about weight and standards of beauty. The two rich girls, Nora and Mary, are thin and petite with light skin. Their Hispanic cook, Carmina, is plump and dark skinned. What does this tell us? Thin and light are beautiful and successful, fat and dark are good for the servants. When Nora and Mary move in with their Hispanic family in East LA, we see a lot of dark-skinned fat women who speak Spanish, and are loud and proud of their working class status. What I find interesting is the use of fat characters to portray working class minorities. As if in some way the filmmakers are giving us a visual to help us distinguish between desirable and undesirable.

There are also subtle messages about race. The white woman is the villain, yet her white brother is the love interest. As this film was made for women, and more specifically, Hispanic women, we can only assume that the filmmakers were pandering to the notion that Hispanic women feel threatened by white women. Make a white woman a villain and you have a hit film.

Not only does this pit two races against each other, but it also reinforces the racist notion that white women and Hispanic women are incapable of mutual respect. Seeing a film that tries to promote that garbage is racist and sexist. Don’t filmmakers understand that we deserve better than that?

Lastly, why, in the name of all that is holy, would the film makers make the living room of Mary and Nora’s Hispanic family into a sweatshop?! My jaw literally dropped when I saw that. Look, I’m a Hispanic woman who was raised in a neighborhood exactly like East LA. I never once saw a sweatshop in someone’s living room. Never.

I wanted to like this film so much, I really did. I wanted to enjoy a film about two Hispanic women without being bombarded with messages about weight and race. All I wanted was to sit back, eat my buttery popcorn and lose myself in pretend for two hours. The filmmakers couldn’t even given me that. I feel jipped.

Last week, I sliced and diced the FAQ on Strong4Life’s website, explaining how the cost estimates associated with obesity are being conflated, and obfuscated, by Strong4Life’s willful manipulation of the facts.

Setting aside the factual issues with their claims that fat kids are costing Georgians “a lot of money,” I find the financial argument that justifies the shaming of fat children to be extremely distasteful and misguided. We have seen this kind of “do anything to save a buck” mentality at work before in even graver situations.

Translated, this Nazi-era poster says*, “This person suffering from hereditary defects costs the community 60,000 Reichsmark during his lifetime. Fellow Germans, that is your money, too.”

Just to be clear, I am not comparing Strong4Life to the Nazis. Although I find the shaming of fat children to be reprehensible and indefensible, the actions of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA) pale in comparison to the atrocities committed by the Nazi party.

That being said, this kind of fiscal rationalization for medical policy can be used to justify any number of injustices, and when organizations spend more time appealing to your pocketbook than your sense of humanity and decency, your red flags ought to immediately be raised.

Economic justification aside, the more humane appeal lies in the claim that CHOA has been overrun by fat kids presenting a range of “obesity-related” illnesses. And on their FAQ, Strong4Life claims that childhood obesity is a crisis because “obese children are at risk for developing heart disease, hypertension, liver and kidney disease and type 2 diabetes.”

But is obesity, or the presence of “excess” fat, responsible for these diseases? And, if so, how prevalent are they?

According to the Texas Heart Institute, the cause of heart disease in children is primarily due to cigarette smoking, not weight:

Among young people who would otherwise have a very low risk of heart disease, cigarette smoking may cause as many as 75 percent of the cases of heart disease.

So only 25% of pediatric heart disease is caused by something other than smoking. It’s simple to conclude that the other 25% would be caused by obesity, but what about the role of genetic heart defects, stress and weight cycling, all of which may also contribute to childhood heart disease.

One of the major risk factors for heart disease is chronic hypertension, but according to Dr. Gerald Reaven, father of our modern understanding of metabolic syndrome, it is the combination of chronic hypertension and high cholesterol that gives us the greatest predictive power. So how prevalent is hypertension among children?

According to the Texas Heart Institute, fewer than 3% of children in the United States have high blood pressure and less than 15% of children have high cholesterol levels.

Considering the fact that Strong4Life repeatedly asserts that 40% of Georgia’s children are overweight or obese, so one would expect these numbers to be much higher.

Although obesity and hypertension are correlated, obese children aren’t the only kids with high blood pressure. According to a 2002 review in the American Heart Association’s Hypertension journal, obese children (those in the 95th percentile for weight) comprised 34% of children with hypertension, while kids with in the 90th percentile and above make up 57% of kids with high blood pressure.

This suggests that 43% of hypertension cases are found in kids in less than the 90th percentile (aka, the kids Strong4Life isn’t targeting), although the percentiles don’t quite add up to 100% in this chart.

But is the child’s weight the determining factor here? If so, you would expect these, and other metabolic indicators, to be consistent across weight classes, regardless of racial and socio-economic barriers. Of course, that just isn’t the case.

In a 1999 study in the Journal of Pediatrics, researchers found that while 11% of overweight white girls presented three cardiovascular risk factors, while 65% of overweight black girls had three risk factors. The same results were found for boys.

So, what accounts for this discrepancy?

In hypertension, the risk factors include obesity, but also sodium intake, hormone regulation, insulin resistance, sympathetic nervous system activation, vascular smooth muscle function, and genetics, which accounts for an estimated 30-60% of variation in blood pressure.

And, in this month’s issue of the Journal of Hypertension, researchers found that “insulin resistance plays a role on hypertension independently from obesity, fat distribution and puberty across weight classes.”

Once again, insulin resistance appears to play a greater role in the development of hypertension, and other metabolic disorders, than obesity. Obesity, hypertension, high cholesterol and type 2 diabetes can all be symptoms of insulin resistance, yet public health organizations like Strong4Life remain committed to combating the symptoms rather than the cause.

Another perfect example of this is when they cite kidney disease as a consequence of obesity. Again, not true.

A December 2011 study in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology looked at children with chronic kidney disease and found that “[46%] percent had hypertension, 44% had dyslipidemia, 15% were obese, and 21% had abnormal glucose metabolism.”

Once again, Strong4Life takes a minor correlation and inflates obesity into a major contributing factor. Nearly 85% of children with chronic kidney disease are not obese, yet Strong4Life lists it as one of the reasons why childhood obesity is a crisis.

But the King of Crisis for childhood obesity has to be type 2 diabetes.

You can’t swing a bag of cupcakes without hitting the childhood obesity/diabetes trope. But just how prevalent is type 2 diabetes in children? A simple search in WebMD reveals the facts:

According to a 2006 study in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 39,000 kids have type 2 diabetes ages 12-19.

That’s a lot of kids. But there are approximately 25 million kids between the ages of 12 and 17. Even allowing that there are even more aged 18 and 19, and you get a conservative estimate that less than 0.15% of kids have type 2 diabetes.

And since there are 2.5 million Georgians under age 18 (PDF), this suggests that in the entire state of Georgia there are 3,750 kids who have type 2 diabetes.

According to estimates of diabetes,  15% of adolescents with impaired fasting glucose are in what is now the obese weight category, while 9.5% of adolescents were in the normal weight. Focusing on weight, rather than the more reliable metrics for detecting diabetes, will result in a free pass given “normal weight” adolescents who may be at risk for diabetes.

So do we point at these children and shame them for costing taxpayers money too? Do we shame their families for failing to rein in metabolic disorders and costing us money? Or do we look at the underlying influences on health, the ones that explain the differences between fat white children and fat black children.

For example, a powerful influence on metabolic health, is early life determinants, including poverty, pregnancy-induced hypertension, smoking during pregnancy, low birthweight, no breast feeding and high sodium diets in infancy.

All of these contributing factors are influenced by socioeconomic status and all of them are part of the social determinants of health, which I explained in greater detail in this post. Are black people more genetically prone to hypertension than white people or are black people more likely to suffer the consequences of an economic system that limits upward mobility and, therefore, their access to greater health and self-care options? And how does living in poverty contribute to stress, yet another powerful influence on our metabolic health?

According to a December 2011 study in the journal Metabolism, stress is tied to many of these issues.

[T]he experience of acute intense physical or emotional stress, as well as of chronic stress, may lead to the development of or may exacerbate several psychologic and somatic conditions, including anxiety disorders, depression, obesity, and the metabolic syndrome… Fetal life, childhood, and adolescence are particularly vulnerable periods of life to the effects of intense acute or chronic stress. Similarly, these life stages are crucial for the later development of behavioral, metabolic, and immune abnormalities.

And guess what contributes to chronic stress… you guessed it, stigma.

So although childhood obesity is correlated with some of the health issues Strong4Life raises, it is by no means the most important risk factor for those diseases, and it is the diseases themselves, not the size or shape of the child’s body, that costs money in the end.

Healthcare organizations should be in the business of treating disease, not shaming kids for having diseases. Promote healthy eating and exercise for all children, and maybe we can reduce the incidents of metabolic disorders in all children, not just those who physically repulse Strong4Life.

*Hat tip to Amber Bante for the poster and translation.

The following is an example of the letter I have been using for the Call to Action. I’ve tweaked it a bit to include information on our recent efforts, and I am posting this here so that you may use this letter either as a template or inspiration or example of how to appeal to the various organizations we have listed without starting over on each one. There is nothing wrong with cutting and pasting the whole thing. Your words don’t have to be original, just your voice.

Dear [CONTACT PERSON],

For nearly a decade our nation has focused its attention increasingly on both obesity in the general population and fat children in particular. The health issues correlated with obesity are complicated and deserve a national conversation to figure out how best to address metabolic disorders, such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and high cholesterol.

At the center of any lifestyle-based public health campaign that seeks to address metabolic disorders there should be an emphasis on two goals: 1) encouraging people to eat fresher, more wholesome foods by improving access, affordability and education for better nutritional options and 2) encouraging people to move their bodies, within each individual’s unique limitations, in healthy, enjoyable and, most importantly, sustainable ways.

I support the efforts of any organization that wishes to address these two components.

However, recently a health campaign in Georgia has dredged up a third option; one that we already know will result in lower self-esteem and negative body image, more eating disorders, more fat patients avoiding routine healthcare checkups (PDF) and an increase in the very metabolic disorders they claim to be fighting (PDF).

This third option is stigma.

Dr. Rebecca Puhl, Director of Research and Weight Stigma Initiatives at the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale University, explains the serious problems associated with using stigma in a public health campaign:

[T]he stigma of obesity has not been addressed as a legitimate concern that requires the attention of those working to combat obesity, and is rarely discussed in the context of public health. In fact, weight stigma has been suggested by some as a method for obesity control The lack of attention to, weight stigma has persisted despite nearly 5 decades of scientific research documenting weight stigma and its consequences for obese individuals.

In spite of the overwhelming research on the negative health effects of stigma, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA) launched the Strong4Life campaign last May with advertisements and billboards such as these:

Rather than addressing the underlying health concerns, CHOA has been mercilessly attacking fat kids for EIGHT MONTHS, despite claims that this was just the first phase of their campaign. They have repeatedly defended their ads as a wake up call to the parents of Georgia, and claim that they aren’t targeting kids.

But make no mistake, the children of Georgia are the targets of this campaign, and the health consequences of stigmatizing fat children is well-documented for children of all sizes.

In response to these ads, we are calling on public health and human services organizations to condemn these ads as harmful to the health of the children of Georgia. We have also begun our own campaign of positive images in support of Georgia’s children. We are also launching another campaign to erect a billboard in Atlanta near one of the Strong4Life billboards. This billboard will seek to reassure fat kids that they do not need to feel ashamed of, or self-loathing toward, their bodies in order to be healthy.

All children, regardless of their weight, should be included in public health campaigns that encourage kids to eat better foods and to get out and play. Singling out fat kids only increases the amount of stigma and shame that they may already feel toward themselves.

We are in the midst of building a coalition of concerned organizations, which currently includes the National Eating Disorders Association, the Binge Eating Disorder Association, the Obesity Action Coalition, and the Academy of Eating Disorders. We are asking you to join us by issuing a public statement condemning the use of stigma and shame in public health campaigns, as well as to ask CHOA to end Phase 1 of their hurtful campaign.

I hope that you will lend us the strength of your voice and the courage of your convictions to bring an end to this terrible campaign. By joining our campaign, you will send a strong message that you support the health of all children and that you oppose negative attacks that target vulnerable kids.

Thank you for your time and I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,
[Your Name Here, Obviously]

Now, get out there and raise some awareness.

UPDATE

To save you time, I am including a list of all the organizations we are emailing, along with the appropriate salutation. Please note that I had to assume the gender identity of those who may use the title of Mr. or Ms.

Dear Ms. Babjak,
pbabjak@eatright.org

Dear Ms. Rhine,
lisbeth@myedin.org

Dear Dr. Collins,
francis.collins@nih.gov

Dear Dr. Insel,
tinsel@mail.nih.gov

Dear Dr. Guttmacher,
guttmach@mail.nih.gov

Dear Dr. Ruffin,
ruffinj@od.nih.gov

Dear Dr. Periago,
director@paho.org

Dear Professor Wright,
wright@ssc.wisc.edu

Dear Professor Amato,
pxa6@psu.edu

Dear Professor Johnson,
sjohnson@apa.org

To Whom it May Concern:
publicinterest@apa.org

To Whom it May Concern:
publicpolicy@arttherapy.org

Dear Dr. Berman,
berman@suicidology.org

Dear Secretary Sebelius,
kathleen.sebelius@hhs.gov

Dear Dr. Lilenfield,
manager@eatingdisorderscoalition.org

laura@feast-ed.org
Dear Ms. Lyster-Mensh,

Dear Ms. Harken,
iaedpmembers@earthlink.net

Dear Mr. Clark,
chris@namedinc.org

Dear Ms. Moran and Ms. Hannaford,
mmoran@kidsterrain.com, rhannaford@kidsterrain.com

Dear Ms. Hackman,
ceo@georgianurses.org

All righty then, after all that’s been going on with CHOA, I thought I was done with ranting. I guess not, not after reading about this school on Long Island that wants kids to wear monitoring bracelets 24/7.

These monitoring bracelets can count heartbeats, detect movement, and track students’ sleeping habits. I’m sorry, but this is outrageous!! Since when is it the business of the school to know a child’s heartbeat? Since when is it the business of the school to know when a child is moving when not at school? And since when is it the school’s business to know how much sleep a child is getting?

The Bay Shore school district has ordered 10 electronic monitoring devices to keep track of students’ physical activity.

The Polar Active monitors are wristwatch-like devices that can count heartbeats, detect movement and track students’ sleeping habits.

The information collected from the devices then gets transmitted to a password-protected website that students and teachers can access.

The school’s athletic director said the devices are a way to fight the childhood obesity epidemic. Similar monitors are already being used in the South Orange, New Jersey school district.

Excuse me? Counting heartbeats, detecting movement, and tracking sleeping habits is going to end “childhood obesity” exactly how? While getting adequate sleep is a good thing, that alone isn’t going to end childhood obesity. Monitoring how much kids move and increasing that amount isn’t going to end childhood obesity either (it might make kids more fit, but it probably won’t make them thin).

This is information that is none of the schools’ business — they have enough work to do with setting up class plans, teaching the subjects, grading papers, etc. Now the school district wants to add another job to their already over-worked and underpaid teaching staff? Pardon me if I’m not impressed.

Sounds like they’re copy-catting another school district. Wonder if they bothered to see how successful those bracelets were for the other school? I’m betting not, and I’m betting that the South Orange school isn’t advertising how “successful” those bracelets have been at making fat kids thin either.

But some parents and privacy advocates are not on board.

The American Civil Liberties Union is calling it an intrusive measurement — and some parents said this program should be voluntary.

The devices cost $90 each and are set to make their debut this Spring in the Bay Shore school district.

Yeah, if I were a parent, I wouldn’t be on board with this plan either, and intrusive is the least of the expletives I would use for it. “Some parents said this program should be voluntary” makes me think the school district is making participation mandatory. Now, if they only have 10 of those bracelets, how are they deciding who has to wear them? Are they going rotate the bracelets among the student body until all the students have worn them?

Or are they going to pick out just the fat kids and make those kids wear the bracelets? Talk about discrimination. Plus, they are setting them up for stigmatization and bullying — yeah, I don’t think so. I have a feeling that if they implement this policy, they are going to have some lawsuits on their hands.

I realize that $900 is a drop in the bucket when it comes to school budgets, but can they really afford to flush that money down the toilet, especially in an economy where houses are worth less, therefore are taxed less, therefore school districts get less money? If they’re spending money on those bracelets, where did they cut money so they could afford them? What program is making do with less money so they can try an experiment to end an epidemic that doesn’t exist?

So, get this…

Yesterday, I posted my video in which I called out Strong4Life for having Phase 2 of their campaign in the can already, and included a clip from the Today Show interview where I first saw them.

Well, no sooner had I posted this video when, lo and behold, the videos from Phase 2 were posted on Strong4Life’s YouTube channel.

Would any of you have been pissed if these were the original ads that Strong4Life had posted? Would anyone have denounced Strong4Life if they had focused on positive messages instead of negative?

And, an even bigger question, does this spell the end for Phase 1 of Strong4Life’s Shame Campaign?

What do you think?

Create your own video telling Strong4Life what it’s like to be a bullied fat kid and submit to our End Fat Bullying Tumblr.

I love to swim.

When I was a kid in Southern California, summer days were spent moving back and forth between the beach and our backyard pool, with some sprinkler/Slip and Slide time in between. I still remember all of our pool games and how it felt to just float under the sun. I loved boogie boarding and going out over my head in the ocean because it seemed so dangerous. The tide would take me down the beach and I’d get out and look for my mom’s big red umbrella (and her, reading romance novels under it) and walk back to do it again.

I also swam competitively from the time I was 10 until I was 17. It’s safe to say that I spent a lot of my childhood in a swimsuit.I was thinking about this today at the gym. We joined this one specifically for its beautiful saline pools. One long lap pool and a smaller warm therapy pool. After lifting weights with my husband and a friend, we went in the therapy pool just to soak out the knots. My swimsuit is a two-piece that covers like a one piece when dry, but exposes my middle in the water. I love it. It’s comfortable and I think I look cute in it.

What’s really sad is that there were a lot of years where I would never have put on a swimsuit in public. No gym pools or water parks for me. I wonder if all of the people who did go swimming during those years are aware of the great sacrifice I made for them, protecting them from the site of me in a swimsuit.

I’ve got my share of body image issues that I work on every day. I’m really grateful that wearing a bathing suit at a public pool isn’t one of them anymore. Eventually, I realized it wasn’t my job to protect everyone else from the site of a fat lady in swimming attire. I just don’t care any more. I love to swim more than I care what anyone thinks about my body.

In the water, I feel graceful and competent in a way that I don’t always during dry land exercise.  My body floats beautifully. Especially in the salt water, which supports it even more, I move like a ballerina in the water. I don’t know if the site of a 330-pound woman in a swimsuit disgusts some of the other swimmers. It’s entirely possible that it might. But guess what? That’s their problem, not mine.

I kind of hope they’re too blinded by my awesome skillz to care what I’m wearing or how much I weigh.

I start school this week, which means adding five 400-level classes to my schedule. The gym is halfway between home and school, and I’m really looking forward to stopping by to get in the salt water, move, and do my water ballerina thing. Exercise is supposed to feel this good — inside and out.

Hat tip to Wendy Brown for the links to the story on Chloe and her YouTube video.

Welcome to Week Three of our stand against Strong4Life.

This is the week when the rubber really hits the road.

If you’ve been following our coverage, you’ve read a lot of bullshit about Strong4Life, but today’s Outrage of the Day comes courtesy of Harriet Brown.

Turns out those poor, sick and sullen fat kids who are dying from the diabetes and hate themselves for being fat? It’s sad, no?

Yeah, not so much.

They are child actors.

They aren’t children who are poor, sick and sullen fat kids who are dying from the diabetes and hate themselves for being fat, but they do play them on TV.

Now, in fairness, Ron Frieson, Chairman of Strong4Life, admitted as much in that Today Show interview. Frieson also says that the words in the campaign come from fat kids themselves, so it’s all right, right?

I mean, if fat kids are admitting that they are horrible and nobody likes them and they think they’re going to die soon, then it’s completely okay to publish those words for all fat kids to see, right? We’ll call it, aligning self-esteem.

Now that Strong4Life is feeling the heat, they’ve taken to parading the child actors around to show that their ads don’t hurt fat kids:

In real life, Chloe, 11, actually doesn’t have hypertension, according to her mother.

“That was the commercial,” Tiffany McSwain said. “She doesn’t have any major health issues, and I’m grateful for that. That’s something we’re trying to prevent at this stage.”

…

Her face, body and weight issues are plastered all over Atlanta, but the people she knows, good friends and otherwise, haven’t taunted her, she said.

“I have confidence in my friends, and my friends are really supportive,” she said. “They’re excited that I’m in a commercial and on billboards.”

Wow! Chloe has confidence and her friends support her? Surely nothing bad has come of these ads, then!

Except…

Chloe is home-schooled, but she does musical theater, summer camps and performing arts classes. [emphasis mine]

I don’t know a lot about home-schooling, but I’m going to go out on a ledge here and say that there aren’t a lot of bullying issues in home-schooling.

And what about kids who don’t have very high self-esteem to begin with? Because, I gotta tell ya, Chloe is not hurting for self-esteem at all. Check this out:

Chloe clearly has the kind of self-confidence and self-worth that we want our fat kids to have. And if you have that foundation, you are less likely to take the hurtful words of others (including hateful billboards) to heart.

While I’m thrilled that Chloe seems like a BAMF in her own right, this does nothing to appease our concerns about the rest of the fat kids in Georgia.

Strong4Life claims they are monitoring the mental health of fat kids in Georgia with surveys, but the fact that nobody on Strong4Life’s staff was ever a fat kid does not bode well for their empathy.

With that in mind, I’d like to announce a new project to help Strong4Life understand what fat kids face.

Now, this video is rife with profanity, so it’s not for children. What it is is a call for others to post their videos on their experiences with fat bullying.

There is also one other issue that I tried to resolve, but could not see a way around it. I mention that this week is No Name Calling Week, which is true. It was only after sharing the video with Wendy Brown (whose comment is in the video) that she pointed out that I call a few of the Strong4Life people names… oh, and the video is called “Hey Strong4Life, Don’t Be a Dickweed.”

I considered editing to be consistent, but after several failed attempts I have resigned myself to accusations of hypocrisy with the intention of responding to those accusations by paraphrasing Strong4Life: I’m just trying to get their attention.

After you create your video, post the link in the comments below.

Also, be sure to check out Marilyn Wann’s Stand4Kids poster project on Tumblr, and submit your own. Send your photos to marilyn at fatso dot com.

And in the near future, Ragen Chastain will be announcing the details of our $10,000 fundraiser to post a fat positive billboard in the Atlanta area.

Be sure to join our Facebook group to keep up with us and sign the Change.org petition.

And, finally, check out our new blog, which is compiling all relevant blog posts regarding this issue at Fat Kids United.

Thank you for helping us fight fat shame and hatred!

I hardly need to introduce Jennifer Hudson, nor do I need to remind you of her recent decision to shill for Weight Watchers. Yesterday, however, I saw this on TV:

See, I had never heard of Jennifer Hudson before I saw her Weight Watchers commercials. I didn’t know what she looked like before WW. If I had recognized her, I would have known what to expect, but I didn’t.Anyway, at first glance, it looks like a public service announcement for eating disorders or body image advocacy. It could also have been a plea from some performing arts organization. Maybe they want us to give the gift of music to underprivileged teens. Either way, Jennifer Hudson was attractive and talented in this commercial. Then the new, improved, thinner JH appears and I roll my eyes.

Isn’t it just sad that someone with so many achievements as a performer is more proud of her weight loss than anything else? Isn’t it sad that, in spite of her achievements as a plus-sized woman, she didn’t believe in herself until now? Shouldn’t she be singing this in praise of her fat self for overcoming the prejudices of others?

But this has been said before.

What bothers me more is the way they bring you in. Most people (except for hard-core fat haters) would be encouraged by seeing a fat woman having a good time, being the center of attention, and succeeding in life. They use an image of a well-dressed fat woman singing specifically about believing in oneself. Then the scene changes into one that focuses on thin privilege. By the time you realize what is going on, you see the advert.

The message is clear: even if you succeed as a fat woman, the way to keep going is to stay thin. After all, you are obviously worth it. Why wouldn’t you give yourself the best treatment possible? A hot bod and an “easy, delicious” diet plan?

I guess they realized that the “before” and “after” photos weren’t cutting it?

Whatever.

I was going to do a serious post this week but because the Strong4Life controversy has taxed us all, I think it’s time to go in an opposite direction and post something more light-hearted. And since us fatties are supposed to love food topics, how about a recipe?

This yummy dish comes from a former co-worker of mine. The recipe I’m sharing is her original, but what’s so great about it is that it’s extremely versatile. You can add ingredients, take some away and change it up to suit your dietary needs. It’s easy to make, doesn’t take up a lot of time,  is perfect for just about any occasion and won’t break your budget. It’s also a good meal if  you’re trying to incorporate more veggies into your life as part of a HAES^® plan or you’d like a food that contains them but isn’t so bland. This would also be a fun recipe to make with kids for those of you that are parents.   So without further ado:

Mary Jane’s Taco Salad

2  lb. ground beef
1 avocado, cubed
2 pkg. taco seasoning
3 tomatoes, cubed
1 can kidney beans
½ – 2  heads of lettuce, shredded, drained, washed
1 (10 ½  oz.) pkg. regular Fritos
1 (12 oz.) pkg. shredded cheddar cheese
1 bottle Catalina dressing (small bottle)
Cheese, cubed  (any type of block cheese)
1 large onion, chopped

Brown and drain beef (this is where you add the chopped onion). Add taco seasoning and cook according to directions on the package. When cooked, mix in the remaining ingredients. Serve immediately. Makes about 12-16 servings.

Have a great weekend and happy cooking!