“I’m addicted!” “It’s a total time suck”  “I can’t stop checking in!!” “It’s just an exercise in voyeurism and exhibitionism.”  “It’s a substitute for real intimacy.” “Do I really want to know what EVERYONE is having for breakfast???”

These are all descriptions that people have shared with me about Facebook and I can’t say I disagree.  But as Tevye would say, “On the other hand…”  For me, it has also been a portal to people and organizations adding knowledge and depth to my personal life and professional pursuits.  Occasionally, the two overlap.

I reconnected with a childhood friend via Facebook and after the usual reminiscing of boys, teachers and most incredible concerts of the 70’s (Sly and the Family Stone at Madison Square Garden and Janice at the Fillmore) we found ourselves in present time.  This is a turning point in The Facebook Friend Continuum.  Once the past is rediscovered, like a safety deposit box of memories, gone through, validated, dusted off, blanks filled in, and carefully put away, what is left in terms of continued meaningful contact?

Sometimes, differences in politics eclipse the common bond of childhood and you pack the person away as part of your history but no longer check their updates.  Other times you may actively defriend someone realizing that they have become (or always were but when you were 10, who knew?) too abhorrent to have their posts show up on your page…or wall…(I’m a bit embarrassed to admit but I am still unclear what the difference is between my wall and my page).

Delightfully rare is when you find someone that even as adults you share common ground and if you were to meet that person for the first time today, chances are you would be friends.  I recently had this experience with “Vee” who unbeknownst to me, had been reading my blog and keeping up with my posts.  She messaged me that she found great comfort and inspiration in the size acceptance, health at every size® message that is woven throughout most of what I write.  I in turn deeply admire her paintings that she shares from time to time. They are poignant in their frankness and familiarity of subject.  Honest and clear, qualities that she appreciates in my writing I value in her art.

Indisputably, Vee is talented successful and educated.  In Dr. Deah’s Hollywood, these are all characteristics of someone who would be confident and self assured.   Sadly, in the real world, it came as no surprise when she wrote to me about how she feels like a failure because in her mother’s eyes, Vee is too fat.

                                                                                                “But, do you still love me?”

This was the question Vee asked her mother recently when she took an emergency trip to Florida to tend to her mother’s every need after Mom’s 7 hour spinal fusion surgery.  A woman in her mid fifties puts her life on hold, during the holidays, takes a taxi from the airport directly to the rehabilitation facility to be with her 80+ year old mom.  Mom, who is immobilized, incontinent and, in my opinion, inexcusably inconsiderate, greets her daughter with,

“You look disgusting, why don’t you lose weight?”

INCONCEIVABLE! 

But NOT inconsistent.  Ah, if we could blame it on the pain medication or some cognitive disorder that had her mother blurting out crazy incoherent insults to anyone who walked by.  But this was completely in sync with her mother’s normal affect and typical lack of affection.  The familiarity of the reproach did nothing to soothe the sting but for the first time Vee changed her lines in their script.  She looked at her mom, and inquired,

“But Mom, do you still love me?”

Think about this scenario…a woman is there to provide unconditional love and help to her mother.  Her mom whose body is in complete disrepair yet still feels superior to her healthy helpful daughter based on the singular criteria of weight.   And because Vee, an accomplished talented grown woman is still, as most of us are, invested in our parent’s love and acceptance she is brought to tears by her mom’s words.  Vee is not alone.  So much of our fat shame and self loathing is really about not feeling loved.  Not feeling worthy of love.  Not being good enough, right enough or thin enough to be loved. It doesn’t matter that we know how ludicrous these judgments are because we have been abused and brainwashed for so long, we instinctively try to defend and justify our weight and bodies.

“After I popped the question, she dropped it but meanwhile I overheard her telling 2 different nurses that I used to be so pretty. Plus her aide told me she talks about my weight to her friends all the time. For Christ’s sake, I’m 145, not 245! Okay, so my ideal weight is 118, realistic weight is 125. But I’m 55 going through menopause, not looking for a husband so I could use a break, thank you very much.”

So I ask you…

Why all the hate? Why do we, as a culture, continue to assault and insult our daughters, sons, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, co- workers for having bodies that are fatter than we think they should be for whatever reason or justification we may think supports this behavior?

So I beseech you…STOP! 

You are breaking someone’s heart.  I guarantee that your well intentioned, “I’m just doing this because I love you,” script is causing more harm than health.  And heaven forbid some day you find yourself lying in bed after surgery and you are lucky enough to have someone there to care for you, try this on for size.

Be happy their body is strong and able enough to transfer you to a wheelchair, or lift you up to change your bed pan.   Be grateful that they love you, even though your body is no longer “perfect.” And be open to the idea that maybe…just maybe…that person may have a chance to be happier with a little dose of appreciation and acceptance.

In Dr. Deah’s Hollywood, Vee’s mom would have just said,

                                                   “Yes.”

Here are two wonderful blogs about love and acceptance that you may enjoy.

 Dr. Pattie Thomas discusses the importance of human empathy in Psychology Today

Erylin writes to her dad in her FFF blog post.

And here is the link to STAND 4 KIDS, a campaign against the Strong 4 Life Campaign that is shaming children in the name of helping them.

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Dr. Deah’s Tasty Morsels

I have been battling a most pernicious bug since the first day of the New Year.  Perhaps some strange kind of karmic pay back for the blog post I wrote expressing my disdain for New Year’s Resolutions…or mere coincidence, either way, I don’t get sick very often, and when I do, I don’t do sick well.

(Wow, a head filled with mucous and I can still squeeze out an unconscious oxymoron).

I’m not sure anyone really does sick well, but some folks are able to give themselves over to the invasive bug or virus and hunker down into the healing mode.  I just can’t do that, it’s a flaw. There is always something that needs my attention and is more demanding than my sniffles and sneezes.  So even though the words are swimming in front of my eyes as I type this, I am determined to meet my deadline and fulfill my obligation for this blog post to the best of my ability.

Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it), the Georgia S4L anti-childhood obesity ad campaign has supplied me with an enormous amount of content to share with you, making the task of writing this blog, a bit easier.  If you have missed this ad campaign, it has had journalists, bloggers, activists, mental health professionals, parents, medical practitioners, etc. all engaged in a heated discourse.  And with today being the first day of Healthy Weight Week (see public service announcement below) this conversation is very timely.

The Strong 4 Life ad campaign consists of commercials and billboards of fat children bemoaning the fact that they are fat. The billboards, like mug shots of fugitives scattered along the highways, are defended by many as a necessary intervention for addressing the critical epidemic of childhood obesity and saving the children.  Opponents of the campaign, adamantly assert that shaming a person, especially a child is no way to facilitate positive change in anyone.   Adding injury from insult, this also results in sanctioning bullying of fat children under the guise that it is “for their own good.”  No surprise that I am aligned with the latter point of view of having already written about these types of  shaming campaigns  in Tasty Morsels,  FFF’s website, and on the Leftoverstogo Facebook Page. 

Perhaps you will have a different opinion, however, and I am curious as to how my readers weigh in on this subject.  The former University Professor in me is assigning all of you an extra credit reading assignment.  I am providing you with a  list of blogs and articles to read, a Facebook page created by Atchka devoted to fighting the campaign, a petition to sign  created by Chevese Underhill of BEDA protesting the campaign, and a letter writing campaign created by Dr Pattie Thomas of Psychology Today, should you decide to voice your opinion, pro or con on the issue.

Whatever side you wind up taking, I urge you to take the time to get educated on this vital topic and make your decision based on fact checking and vigilant research.  If you have additional links, please share them with us as well.

ARTICLES

•  http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/04/anti-obesity-ads-won-t-work-by-telling-fat-kids-to-stop-being-fat.html
•  http://www.abc2news.com/dpp/news/health/controversial-ads-encourge-overweight-children-to-lose-weight
• http://www.salon.com/2012/01/03/why_is_georgia_shaming_fat_children

•   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/02/georgia-child-obesity-ads_n_856255.htm

BLOGS

• http://healthateverysizeblog.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/the-haes-files-georgia-on-my-mind/

• http://www.moreofmetolove.com/blogs/entry/fat-meth/
• http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/i-take-space/201201/weight-is-social-identity-according-new-research

• http://harrietbrown.blogspot.com/2012/01/whats-wrong-with-georgias-childhood.html
•   http://fiercefatties.com/2012/01/05/hammer-time/
• http://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/georgia-disney-and-the-wave-on-my-mind/
•  http://www.ajc.com/opinion/obesity-ads-serve-as-1300929.html

Thanks to Duckie Graham for these phone numbers:

•   Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH): 301-496-2433 (Dr. Collins)

•   Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH): 301-443-3673 (Dr. Insel)

• Director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD): 301-496-3454 (Dr. Guttmacher)

• Director of the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD): 301-402-1366 (Dr. Ruffin)

HEALTHY WEIGHT WEEK CELEBRATED JAN. 15-21

By the third week in January, New Year diets are dumped, the rebound binge is over and people are looking for balance to get their lives back on track. They can find it in the 19^th annual Healthy Weight Week that begins Sunday, promoting lifestyle habits of wellness for people of all sizes and shapes.  “It’s a time to say ‘I’m okay and so are you.’ Let’s stop dieting and get on with living in normal healthy ways,” says Francie M. Berg, MS, licensed nutritionist and adjunct professor at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine, who chairs the event.

Healthy Weight Week features two sets of awards. Adele, the young British singer, topped the Women’s Healthy Body Image Awards. The Slim Chance Awards for worst diets of 2011 went to a 23-year-old self-made millionaire, HCG hormone treatment, Sensa weight-loss crystals, and a plastic bracelet set with hologram discs.

During Healthy Weight Week, people are encouraged to improve habits in lasting ways by eating well, living actively and feeling good about themselves and others. For more information see www.healthyweight.net/hww.htm##

CONTACT:
Ronda Irwin or Francie M. Berg
701-567-2646
Healthy Weight Network
402 South 14th Street
Hettinger, ND 58639
www.healthyweight.net

Every January, for the past 3 years I have posted this video on my Facebook page.  Each year I hope it will be obsolete.  Each year I DREAM it will be my last and I will get flooded with emails, texts (and now tweets ) begging me to,

“Drop it already Dr. Deah that’s old news!!!  It doesn’t happen anymore. Move on to another cause.”

With Healthy Weight Week around the bend on January  15^th and little change to be noticed, I find myself in the position to once again post this classic video from the Tri Delta folks.

I am not saying that this year has been void of remarkable strides in the size acceptance and HAES ^(sm) communities.  Thanks to the hard work of the following people and organizations:  NAAFA, About Face,  The Body Positive, ASDAH, NORMAL, Fierce Freethinking Fatties, Linda Bacon, Paul Campos, Darryl Roberts, Jon Robinson, Jay Solomon, Judy Matz, Ellen Frankel, Ragen Chastain, Golda Poretsky, Marilyn Wann, Kim Brittingham, Frances Berg, Joanne Ikeda,

(ooops, they are playing the, “Get her off the stage before she starts thanking everyone in the academy by name music”)

fabulous inroads were made into the most ossified institutions including:  media, fashion, health and big pharm.    But as the recent ad campaign in Georgia  illustrates, we still have a long way to go.

What is great about this Tri Delta video, is how it reminds us that we don’t need to be visible or esteemed enough to infiltrate the news, magazines, or  halls of congress to make a difference.  Any activist knows that changing other people’s minds is difficult and most of the times impossible.  As Ragen Chastain of Dances with Fat says,

“I can explain it to you but I can’t make you understand.”

Activists also know there are changes we can make on our own that may cause a ripple effect and eventually a wave, and ultimately a CONSTRUCTIVE tsunami of attitudinal adjustment in this society.

In the spirit of throwing that first pebble in the water, I ask you to please take a moment and watch this video.  Even if you’ve seen it before, consider it a booster shot and go into the New Year loving your body, nurturing your body, and not taking crap from nobody about your body.

And maybe in January, 2013 I won’t have to post this again?

I can dream can’t I?

To My Readers:

11111112.  No I’m not writing this blog in binary.  That would have a zero in it I think…math…not my thing.  Numerology? Also not my thing.   But it’s hard to ignore that I am writing this blog on 1/1 and it is my 111 Tasty Morsels Blog Post and my first blog of ’12.  Hence 1111112, and for some reason, that’s just cool.  

I wrote my first blog post a year ago after Leftovers To Go’s web designer, Rocky Laber of DSD Interactive, advised that blogging would help generate traffic to the website and more people would learn about and purchase the Leftovers To Go Workbook/DVD set.  I had never “blogged” before, rarely read other people’s blogs, and didn’t know how blogging would differ from my past writing experiences. My curiosity was piqued and ready for the challenge, I made the commitment to blog for one year.

I began by commenting on news stories and special events that focused on eating disorders, size discrimination and health at every size®.  During the process, of researching sources and topics for blogs, it did not take me long to find that every day in some newspaper somewhere there was something to comment on.  I found I was unable to postpone the gratification of commenting long enough to write my blog posts and began adding my voice in the reader’s comments sections.  I gathered there was a greater likelihood the authors and other readers of the articles would “hear” my point of view there, rather than trust that the mysterious world of search engine optimization would bring people to the Leftovers to Go website.   In doing this, I discovered an entire community of HAES^(sm) and size activist bloggers diligently working to educate and offer support to the public.  Therapists, Dieticians, Dancers, Doctors, Activists…all blogging away!  Who Knew??!! I was so impressed with the mother lode of articulate and sane voices out there that I began using my blog to promote other people’s blogs, webinars, organizations and websites.  While this did not accomplish the original goals of  my blog (to increase book sales and other commercial endeavors) there was no turning back.  I was on a mission and if there was a way I could use my small piece of the “interwebs” to fight size discrimination and promote self-acceptance, then I was all for that! How difficult could it be? There was no scarcity of material to draw from, and it is a controversial and important niche for engaging readers in constructive discourse and active diablogue.  Piece of cake, right?

Wrong!

Don’t let anyone tell you that blogging is easy.  It isn’t.  I know many people think that a blogger just sits down at the keyboard,  perhaps free associates or employs a technique of writing their thoughts down in a stream of consciousness as if they were talking to someone, and twenty minutes later they hit the publish button.  But it really isn’t like that and I am in awe of people who blog daily.  IN AWE!  With time a valuable commodity, and never enough of it, I’m lucky if I write one post a week.  Writing a blog is labor intensive and each post, a labor of love.

It isn’t easy on an emotional level either.  Publically posting personal material puts the writer in a vulnerable position.  (Wow, sorry about the alliteration!) There is a bond that develops between a blogger and their audience, a sense of trust and intimacy that builds up as people share difficult material.  It is public and private at the same time.  Over the year, I have expanded the voice of Dr. Deah’s Tasty Morsels from strictly an op. ed. style to include more personal stories about my work as a Therapist, Professor, Actress, Author, and Activist and it is a challenging balance.  Too much disclosure is unprofessional in the therapeutic community, not enough personalization, and your empathy is unconvincing.  Too many facts, you are writing a mini dissertation, not enough you are just ranting. Blogging is an art form that is developing as we speak, or write…as it were.  As part of their teacher training programs, colleges and universities have developed new curriculum on how to use blogging as a gateway to literacy and a vehicle to facilitate improved social interaction and communication skills.  What started off as a radical fringe journalism movement, has gained credibility and wide spread approval and acceptance.  The parallel between the successful mainstreaming of blogging and the fight for inclusion that the HAES and size acceptance movements are currently engaged in is easy to see.  Perhaps that is why blogging is a logical medium for communicating these “radical” concepts to dispel the prevailing myths about the obesity epidemic in our country.

On January 7^th, my year is up. I have written 111 Tasty Morsels blog posts and am syndicated on several websites.  I am honored that in a world filled with so many choices and so little time you select a “Dr. Deah’s Tasty Morsel” to savor.  I am thrilled when you take time to add your voices in the comments section.  Supportive or argumentative, either way, it means I have ignited a thought, a feeling, a reaction and provided YOU the opportunity to find and share your voice and opinions.  For me, it has been time well spent, and I may just re-up for another tour of duty.

Warmly,

Dr. Deah

CHECK OUT THESE OTHER SOURCES FOR  BLOGGERS :

LEFTOVERSTOGO.COM  

MORE OF ME TO LOVE`

HEALTH AT EVERY SIZE WEBSITE

FIERCE FREE THINKING FATTIES