by Peggy Howell

The holiday season is upon us and I know that even in this tough economy, giving to our family, friends and those less fortunate than ourselves is on all of our minds. Americans generally pride ourselves on being generous, and time and again we have shown that to be true! Sadly, the decline in our economy has cramped our style for many of us and we need to make every dollar count.

I would like to suggest ways that you can help fund the projects that NAAFA is involved in while giving gifts of meaning and purpose. Fifteen dollars ($15.00) is all it takes to buy a family member or friend a contributing membership to NAAFA for one year. NAAFA's 2012 SUPER EARLY BIRD SPECIAL convention package is only $199.00 through 1/31/2012. Wouldn't you love to receive a convention package as a holiday gift? I know I would!

Don't forget that the purchase of gifts for others or a donation to NAAFA is tax deductible for the gift giver! Any of these great gifts will keep on giving long after the holiday season is behind us. Your generous gift to NAAFA will enable us to move forward in our efforts to improve the lives of people of all sizes and end discrimination for good! May your holidays be filled with love, laughter and big fat hugs!

The NAAFA Board of Directors is pleased to announce the addition of three chapter officers to our national team of leaders. Please help us welcome Tony Harrell, Julianne Wotasik and Lesleigh Owen to the NAAFA Auxiliary Board of Directors as they assume new responsibilities and assist in moving NAAFA projects forward as we work to improve the lives of people of size the world over.

Tony Harrell has served for the last five years as Treasurer of the Capital Chapter of NAAFA in the Washington, DC area. He will be focusing on organizational infrastructure and helping to develop new financial checks and balances. With more than fifteen years of experience as an accountant, we believe that Tony is well suited for this new position.

Julianne Wotasik and Lesleigh Owen are presently serving as President and Vice President (respectively) of the NAAFA Los Angeles chapter. Their new responsibilities will include working to create alliances with other organizations, engaging current members, soliciting new members, and further establishing NAAFA as the flagship of the size acceptance community. As long-time fat rights activists with excellent writing and speaking skills, as well as boundless energy and enthusiasm, Julianne and Lesleigh are the perfect duo to help grow our organization as we move forward.

Please join us in congratulating them on their new positions and thanking them for their continued dedication to NAAFA and size acceptance.

The 19th annual Healthy Weight Week, January 15-21, 2012, is a time to celebrate healthy diet-free living habits that last a lifetime, and prevent eating issues and weight cycling. Our bodies cannot be shaped at will, but we can all be accepting, healthy, and happy at our natural weights.

NAAFA Advisory Board member Frances Berg, MS. LN, author, pioneer and founder of the Healthy Weight Network, is the sponsor of Healthy Weight Week. Observe and celebrate Healthy Weight Week this January 15-21, 2012.

Visit their website http://www.healthyweight.net/hww.htm for more information on how you can participate.

by Cinder Ernst

Hey thanks for all the great responses to renaming the Butt Buster. Here are the top two: The Butt Bouncer or The Percolator. Thanks everyone for participating; now you can pick one. Send me your vote at coach@cinderernst.com

This month's topic is "pick one". Have you ever found yourself saying "I'm not sure", or "I don't know"? Sure, everyone has. Sometimes we choose by not choosing. Sometimes we can't even see there is a choice, so we pick by default.

How is this relevant to exercise?

Let's face it, if you are fat then you have experienced fat stigma. It sucks. People have shared stories that make you wanna puke at the way people treat each other. There's no hiding when you are fat, and there is no doubt that there is stigma. That's why I love NAAFA. Join NAAFA; get support, give support and advocate, and help other people too. Unfortunately, that does not mean you will not encounter fat stigma as you do life and exercise.

I asked some fat readers what their biggest challenges are to exercise. I expected to hear sore knees or finding the right shoes. What I heard is how hard it is for folks to navigate other people's bad behavior.

You will encounter fat stigma as you exercise. It can be from the general public and even from people you know. And it sucks! And you will have to choose, in that moment, where you will put your focus. Should you focus on that person (OK butt head), place or situation that is wrong and hurtful, or on your dreams and desires? Pick one. Each moment, pick one. You can only focus on one thing at a time, you must pick.

I recommend you pick your dreams and desires. In this situation it's good to know, really, what about your dreams and desires makes your heart go pitter pat? Because your dreams and desires must be more interesting than the obstacle (or butt head) in front of you. So get specific and personal with this question: What really matters to me in life?

It may be that you want to get stronger and healthier so you can contribute more to NAAFA. Maybe you want to travel somewhere and see a specific museum. Maybe you want to go back to school and need more stamina to do that. Maybe you want to play catch with a child or friend. I don't know what your dreams and desires are, but I know you know. Look inside right now and see what is in your heart; what is that one thing to which you want to bring your best game? The answer to that question may be what helps you navigate your next obstacle with some sweetness.

So right now take a moment and answer the question: What really matters to me in life? Write down your answers. As you read and write these sweet reasons, squeeze your butt a few times then do a few shoulder blade kisses. You can always choose where to put the focus of your attention.

I would love to hear your sweet reasons. I think it would be fun to compile a list of what is important to us. On the top of my list is "to be a contributor to my community". That reason is why I am a coach and why I write this column. Please send me yours at coach@cinderernst.com You can also join me at www.cinderernst.com for a free teleseminar this month and other fun and free tips.

Bonus! You may want to list your sweet reasons on an index card so they are handy. Focus on your sweet reasons as you navigate obstacles during the holiday season. Keep the card handy.

Workbook/DVD Set by Dr. Deah Schwartz and Anne Wilford, MA MFT
Review by Darliene Howell

Entertaining. Thought-provoking. Therapeutic.

The new Leftovers program uses simulations (DVD), therapeutic writing, group discussion and other creative exercises to lead participants in self-exploration around beliefs and feelings about their bodies and their relationship with food.

The Leftovers program can be used in therapeutic or education settings as well as other support groups. The set includes the Leftovers DVD, a workbook for facilitators, a facilitator binder and five participant binders for use during the group sessions. Handouts, working materials and homework assignment pages for five participants are included in the facilitator binder.

The DVD shows examples of the impact of the diet mentality and weight-driven culture in which we live. It reflects the battle that dieters have with the biological influences to re-gain lost pounds along with the "blame" attributed to being fat. Each scene leads participants through the many emotions, thoughts and stresses that are connected with compulsive eating and body image issues. The handouts and homework allow participants to process those thoughts and emotions by tracing them to root causes of self hatred and body hatred, and group exercises help in the journey to body acceptance and self love.

You can purchase the workbook/DVD set at the Leftovers website: http://www.leftoverstogo.com/order-workbook-dvd-set

by Rachel Whittaker

My name is Rachel, and I'm a junior at a private Catholic high school in Florida. In a social justice class at school, I was assigned to cover a prejudice of my choosing. My partner Kyle and I chose obesity. We chose this topic due to the fact we've seen this prejudice first hand.

While conducting research on obesity prejudice, Kyle and I came across the NAAFA organization. After learning about the organization's mission, we decided that we wanted to look further into NAAFA. The mission was to eliminate discrimination based on body size. The way to erase the discrimination is self-empowerment through public education, advocacy, and support.

Kyle and I thought that we would try to share what we knew about obesity prejudice to educate others. We started our presentation by describing what obesity is. We followed that by saying prejudice of any type needs to be stopped. Any idle comments made towards others should never be acceptable and we need to make that clear.

The media has made the prejudice more prominent on account of models getting progressively thinner even though over the past years the average weight of American women has increased. [Editor's note: Since 2001, the weight trend of Americans has leveled off.]

After opening the topic of obesity prejudice, Kyle and I introduced NAAFA to our class. We shared with them how this organization is dedicated to ending size discrimination in all forms. Everyone has dignity and deserves respect, regardless of their weight or physical appearance. If the students in our class took anything from our presentation, we wanted them to take one of NAAFA's sayings, "We come in all sizes . . . Understand it. Support it. Accept it."

What I learned through all of this is that obesity prejudice doesn't stop at verbal teasing. On occasion, those who are obese have to face physical aggression and relational victimization. I believe that one should not be labeled because of their weight.

Kyle and I hope that we represented NAAFA well. We hope that by advocating the cause, we can truly make a difference. It may sound cliché, but if only one student took what we had to say to heart, Kyle and I would feel accomplished.

After the presentation, Kyle and I asked other students to complete an anonymous survey. The majority of the class said they understood the message Kyle and I were trying to convey. They also said they would think twice about making a distasteful comment towards someone who is obese. Kyle and I believe the first step to ending obesity prejudice is to educate everyone on the issue.

by Bill and Terri Weitze

[Find more news at http://naafa.org]

 

October 21, 2011: HAES^TM gets a nod in The Chief Public Health Officer's Reports on the State of Public Health in Canada. While the document is not wholly HAES-sensitive, it does provide some support for HAES^TM, in a section (near the end of Chapter 4) reportedly contributed by Dr. Linda Bacon.

http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/cphorsphc-respcacsp/2011/index-eng.php

 

November 2, 2011: Fat self-hatred kills. According to the Angeles County Coroner's Office, actor and retired athlete Bubba Smith, whose body was found on August 3, died of an overdose of the weight-loss drug phentermine.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/11/bubba-smith-died-of-drug-intoxication-other-factors-coroner-says.html

 

November 2, 2011: A New York Times article examines how many panels charged with setting health policy in the US are filled with members who will benefit from the recommendations. For example, according to the article, "Financial conflicts have surfaced among members of three groups that are developing major public health standards on hypertension, cholesterol and obesity."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/health/policy/health-guideline-panels-struggle-with-conflicts-of-interest.html

 

November 2, 2011: NAAFA's Los Angeles Chapter posts a video showing their members rocking our 2011 Annual Convention with rousing cheers celebrating our diversity!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=QIc-fkLbgvs

 

November 4, 2011: In taking a closer look at earlier experiments that seem to show that weight cycling might reduce cancer risk, researchers find no benefit to weight cycling pertaining to cancer risk, and in fact see some increase in risk for certain types of cancer.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21982873

 

November 9, 2011: Harvard University has published a study that claims that if your baby gains weight faster than the average, your baby has a greater chance of being fat later in life. However, since 12% of those fast-growing babies were fat at age 5, and 10% of all preschool children are fat, the growth pattern does not seem to be an efficient predictor. When you consider that brain, bone and muscle development depend on proper nutrition in formative years, putting babies on diets is a bad idea.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2011/11/09/baby_obesity_ study_is_just_link_bait.html

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/babies-obesity-path-sign-may-132732172.html

http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/165/11/993

 

November 9, 2011: Writing for Buzzsaw Magazine, Chris Zivalich addresses the damage done by society's stigmatization of fat people, concluding that "Our 'obesity crisis' is really more of a 'thinking crisis'. . . ."

http://www.buzzsawmag.org/2011/11/09/unhealthy-myths

 

November 9, 2011: A dating service for married people looking to have an affair, Ashley-Madison, runs ads featuring a fat model who says her image was used without her permission (although Ashley-Madison claims they purchased the image legally). Even more upsetting to the model is that her image is being used to promote two things she is vehemently against: cheating and body shame. CEO Noel Biderman claims the ads are not anti-fat. Apparently, he thinks we are not only fat but also dumb.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/ashley-madison-fat-ad-shames-obese-women-porn/story?id=14908377

 

November 9, 2011: A drug that targets the blood vessels in white fat tissue has caused an average of 11% weight reduction in spontaneously-obese monkeys in a month. The drug causes some (predictable) kidney problems which have so far proven reversible. The weight loss begins to reverse in the fourth week of the follow-up period. We think that attacking blood vessels for a temporary weight loss seems like a bad tradeoff.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111109143009.htm

http://www.sciencemedicine.org/content/3/108/108ra112.short

 

November 10, 2011: Derrick Rutledge is a makeup artist for some of America's top celebrities. He has also been a fat person all his life, sometimes fatter than others, and that fact has, in the words of the article, "defined his destiny."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/makeup-artist-derrick-rutledge-makes-over-michelle-obama-oprah--and-himself/2011/09/11/gIQA8G9E9M_story.html

 

November 16, 2011: Ragen Chastain reports the success of the petition asking The National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) to end its partnership with George Washington University's Strategies to Overcome and Prevent (STOP) Obesity Now Alliance. NEDA has removed the STOP Obesity Alliance partnership from their website.

http://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/success-and-progress

 

November 16, 2011: More employers are adopting policies of making employees who smoke, are fat, or have high cholesterol pay a higher percentage of their health insurance premiums. Others argue that this is providing a way for employers to discriminate against workers with medical issues.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/health/policy/smokers-penalized-with-health-insurance-premiums.html

 

November 16, 2011: The New York Times never directly mentions Catherine the Great's size in its review of Robert K. Massie's book about the Empress of Russia but includes a sly reference to her "heft" in the first paragraph as well as providing an engraving of the Empress.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/books/review/catherine-the-great-portrait-of-a-woman-by-robert-k-massie-book-review.html

 

November 17, 2011: The McGill Daily discusses fat phobia, suggesting that fat-haters might be well advised to look at the actual science and learn the difference between correlation and causation. (We agree!)

http://www.mcgilldaily.com/2011/11/the-skinny-on-fatphobia

 

November 23, 2011: An article in the Journal of Feminist Scholarship provides support for HAES^TM from a feminist perspective, stating "a feminist position on the war against obesity clearly argues against a focus on weight".

http://www1.umassd.edu/jfs/issue1/articles/welsh.html

 

November 25, 2011: Yet another study shows the protective effect of being fat for coronary heart disease (CHD) patients. In fact, of the groups in this study, those at the highest risk for death had the lowest body fat, combined with a high inflammatory state.

http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/meeting_abstract/124/21_ MeetingAbstracts/A11989?sid=949a653a-bd59-452a-9920-5120bbc26592

 

November 26, 2011: An article on companies that cater to fat people includes positive quotes from NAAFA founder Bill Fabrey and NAAFA PR director Peggy Howell. Sadly, the article's overall tone is anti-fat to the point of mocking.

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/supersize-americas-biggest-business-2946599.html

 

November 26, 2011: File under "This hasn't ever worked before, so let's try it again". A fat third grader, who is also suffering from sleep apnea, is taken from his family and put into foster care for not losing weight. Officials feel that his continued fatness is in itself sufficient evidence that his mother isn't feeding him properly. Since sleep apnea is a treatable condition, the county government justified its actions by citing possible future health issues. As evidenced by comments on the Yahoo article (first link), even people who aren't fat-positive think that taking a child from its family requires more justification. Note: a 2008 study shows that children in foster care are more likely to be fat (third link).

http://news.yahoo.com/obese-third-grader-taken-mom-placed-foster-care-201731761.html

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2011/11/obese_cleveland_heights_child.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18959567

 

November 28, 2011: Ragen Chastain has some choice words about Dr. Oz's reaction to the science that fitness researcher Dr. Glenn Gaesser dropped on the Dr. Oz show (our video of the month).

http://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/dr-oz-is-flabbergasted

 

December 5, 2011: A review in the Huffington Post discusses what Lifetime TV gets right and what is missing from its reality show about eating disorders.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laura-collins-lystermensh/tracey-gold-starving-secrets_b_1127899.html

 

December 5, 2011: A study of 14,000 well-off, middle-aged men finds that fitness level, and not weight, is more important in reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality.

http://www.philly.com/philly/health/HealthDay659502_20111205_ Fitness_May_Lower_Death_Risk_Even_Without_Weight_Loss.html

http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/124/23/2483.short

 

December 5, 2011: Not satisfied with the real bodies of models, clothing vendor H&M is putting the heads of real models on computer-generated bodies for some of its advertisements. So if you think the bodies of models are unreal, you may be literally correct.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/05/hm-fake-model-bodies_n_1129864.html

 

December 9, 2011: Fat people who suffer from atrial fibrillation (a type of heartbeat irregularity) have a greater improvement in the quality of their life following surgical intervention than thin patients having the same procedure.

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/heart/articles/2011/12/09/obese-patients-may-benefit-the-most-from-surgery-for-irregular-heartbeat

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S154752711100796X

 

December 9, 2011: Huffington Post discusses some of the new studies showing that fitness is more important to health than fatness, and that being fat can even have health benefits.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/08/you-can-be-fat-but-fit_n_1137750.html

 

December 10, 2011: A study from researchers at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) and elsewhere shows that reducing stress and promoting mindful eating (without calorie restriction) may reduce elevated cortisol secretion, which is believed to promote abdominal fat.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/304591/does-de-stressing-help-curb-obesity-among-women

http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jobes/2011/651936

 

December 11, 2011: French pharmaceutical company Laboratoires Servier is at the center of a health scandal around the drug Mediator (also known as benfluorex). The drug was approved in France, Luxembourg and Portugal as a diabetes medication but was often prescribed for weight loss. In 2009, Servier quietly pulled the drug off the market after it was linked to hospitalizations and deaths from cardiac valve damage and pulmonary hypertension.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/health/scandal-widens-over-french-weight-loss-drug-mediator.html 

Most of us in the size acceptance community are familiar with Dr. Glenn Gaesser, Exercise Physiologist and author of Big Fat Lies. Earlier this year, Dr. Gaesser posted a challenge to Dr. Oz on YouTube (http://youtube.com/watch?v=5Q-sHS27PZU) that resulted in his being invited to the Dr. Oz Show to discuss their differences of opinion.

Take a look at this four part video interview during which Dr. Gaesser makes his case for being healthy WITHOUT losing weight:

http://www.doctoroz.com/ videos/can-you-be-fat-and-fit-pt-1 

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