ELEGANT PLUS CONTENT TAGS:Activism, body image, Dieting, Health, Health at Every Size, Jenny Craig, Musings from the Editors Chair, nutrition, Queen Latifah Size Acceptance

When a Queen Lets Down Her Subjects:  Queen Latifah Representing Diet Industry Giant Jenny Craig

by T. A. Politis, Managing Editor
Musings for the Editor’s Chair at Elegant Plus Magazine

I’d begun this week writing a column on the looming clash of plus-size apparel company giants for market share, but a surprise….. a disappointing surprise…… popped up on the radar screen.  Queen Latifah, a celebrity I had long admired for just plain being good at what she did and doing her thing while proving size really had very little to do with talent, is now publicly linked with diet industry giant Jenny Craig.  To say I’m let down and disappointed is an understatement.  So the other article will have to wait until later in the week while I pause to examine the issues this turn of affairs raises.

There are those who are applauding Queen Latifah’s move, asking why shouldn’t a woman clearly comfortable in her own skin not promote healthy lifestyle?  In fact, some believe she has a moral obligation to do so as a role model and a celebrity.  And, guess what, fundamentally I agree with the view that healthy lifestyles are worth promoting.

 But this is where it gets messy and opinion diverges.   Those applauding this particular business partnership between a curvy celebrity and a diet industry giant are accepting a fundamental  assumption pervasive in our culture.  That’s right an assumption, not a fact.  Thinner equals healthier.   Actually two assumptions.  The other is: dieting will make you thinner (and therefore healthier, right?).  There have been lots of advertising dollars, spin doctors, pharmaceutical industry paid “scientific” studies to prove this too.  And let’s not forget the sound bites and media blitz yelling hysterically about the rise of obesity.  The fact is, Queen Latifah herself probably believes in these assumptions.  So many of us do.

There is another school of thought altogether that promotes healthy lifestyle choices - eating right and getting enough exercise PERMANENTLY — not restricting calories to unhealthy levels temporarily to lose weight and then going back to poor eating patterns. (And healthy eating choices does not just mean only the number of calories that you consume, by the way. It takes into consideration food quality and overall nutritional value as well.) This alternative view, known as Health at Every Size,  also does not focus on the numbers on the scale as the marker of success, but rather how well a body is functioning.  Let me say that again. It is worth repeating:  Health at Every Size does not focus on the numbers on the scale as the markers of healthly lifestyle success. Diet companies do. It’s been proven many times that those that go on big name diets  gain the weight back at an alarmingly high rate within just a few years. And one thing we do know for sure is that yo-yo dieting wrecks metabolisms and leaves people far more susceptible to disease than if they never went on the diet in the first place.  We ran an article by fitness professional Jennifer Portnick awhile back that addresses many of these issues in greater detail that you might want to consult for more information.

Also, there is a lot of evidence out there that doesn’t get talked about much,  especially not from a business that makes its money selling diets to you or a media that loves sensational headlines and imagery:  weight gain may not be the causal factor of a lot of the diseases to which it is linked, but rather is one of the first symptoms of the disease as it takes hold. So losing weight isn’t the cure all it’s held up to be often, either.

So you think that perhaps your lifestyle choices could use improving and you want to better your health, right? You feel sluggish, not your best, and huff more than a little bit climbing stairs.  And you don’t like that.  You want to improve. Yay! That’s great news!  That’s truly the first step to loving yourself - staying in tune with how your body is functioning and taking care of it when all is not well. 

The solution, however, I would suggest is not in the bottom of pre-cooked, over-processed, tiny caloried food boxes of Jenny Craig.  Nor is it in the magic diet pill being sold at the supermarket.  If you are serious about creating a healthier you, educate yourself in what healthy food choices are.  Get yourself to a nutritionist if you need help understanding why not all yogurt is created equal and why whole foods are better than processed (even if the box reads “low calorie” or “diet”). Then work on gradually altering eating styles permanently — and no that doesn’t mean never eating chocolate cake, fried chicken or ice-cream ever again, just maybe not three times a week and always in moderation.  Find a fitness professional who can help you develop a sensible exercise plan you can stick to for life if you find yourself unable to do it alone, or find a walking buddy.  And if you need to, visit a psychologist to help you with any emotional issues you may be linking to food or eating. 

No quick fixes.  No short term solutions.  And very little standing on scales to measure goal success.  Some people, many people in fact (although not all and very rarely to the waifish sizes usually seen as “success” in diet driven literature), find that they lose weight when they normalize eating and exercise patterns.  But, and this is a big BUT,  when weight-loss and fitting into a size 6 (or 10 or 14) dress isn’t the end goal, this lower bodyweight set-point is a non-issue. Rather the reward and goal of changing lifestyle patterns is what it should be…..that an individual can keep up with their toddler better or they find they have fewer colds, their blood sugar evens out or lowers and therefore risk for developing Type 2 diabetes declines, or they just generally are more active and enjoying life more. That is how better health is measured.  So, for those that have bodies that fall on the heavier end of the human “normal” body weight bell-curve there is no failure when weight or size loss isn’t achieved.  Diet companies even when they use the words “health” and “healthy” still measure success by pounds or inches lost, and don’t care much what other parts of your health may have been wrecked in the process.

So yes, I’m hugely disappointed by the this big business partnership. She may not be their spokeperson, but rather is accepting advertising dollars as a sponsor for her “Trav’lin Light” album (three guesses why they wanted to be linked with that slogan) tour.  But most people won’t see the fine line of who is sponsor and who is sponsored.  The Queen has fallen far in my esteem and affections.  There are so many healthier causes she could have aligned with than the yo-yo diet industry.

Popularity: 24% [?]

ELEGANT PLUS CONTENT TAGS:Activism, body image, Fat Rant, Joy Nash, Musings from the Editors Chair, obesity, Size Acceptance Women and Media

Joy Nash’s original Fat Rant video clip took the internet by storm earlier this year.  Since then she’s become a talk show guest taking on the likes of MeMe Roth and gotten neck deep in national size-acceptance issues.  She’s smart, well-spoken …. and yes fat.  But not in the media stereo-typical way that seems to delight in images of sloth when portraying fat people.  She’s very cute and curvaceous, fashionable and well dressed. And, let’s not forget funny, but unlike the usual fat comedian, not in a self-deprecating (might we even say self-loathing) way that we usually see.  No Kirstie Alley self-hating antics for her. 

 Check out Part 2 of her Fat Rant.   Kudos! 

Now excuse me while I go feed a sleep addiction and take a nap.

Popularity: 15% [?]

ELEGANT PLUS CONTENT TAGS:Activism, Advice, Back to School, BBW, Beauty, body image, body types, Confidence, Guest Article, Health, Life, obesity, parenting, Plus Size, self esteem, Size Acceptance, Teens women

Fat… So? 

Human beings come in all sizes.  How can we promote health …. and size-acceptance in our schools?

by  Camille Jackson of Tolerance.org
Reprinted with permission at Elegant Plus Magazine

As the “War on Obesity” heats  up, in schools across the country kids who are heavier than their classmates experience size bias and even outright bullying from peers and adults.  And, school health programs can sometimes hurt more than they help. Experts from the size-acceptance community, whose views are often omitted from health debates, offer a fresh perspective: eat healthy foods, stay active, and don’t worry about your weight and size.

Article title based on Marilyn Wann’s book,     Fat! So? Because You Don’t Have to Apologize for Your Size

 ”I’m the biggest in my family and I have the best cholesterol and blood sugar,” announces Kevin, a junior at Sequoia High School in Redwood City, Calif. He has just walked an extra-long distance for a late lunch of salad topped with grilled chicken strips and ranch dressing, followed by chocolate chip cookies. He came to the school’s Teen Resource Center to make a point about stereotypes.

“I play three sports, I ride my bike, I walk everywhere and I’m still the same size,” he says, insisting his health is better than some of his thinner classmates.

Looking at his larger-than-average size, some doubt Kevin is as healthy as he claims. But Marlene Schwartz, co-director of the Yale Center for Eating and Weight Disorders, says it’s quite likely Kevin’s weight may not negatively affect his health.

“I believe if a child is eating a nutritionally balanced diet and is active, if he or she has a higher BMI [body mass index], it doesn’t matter,” says Schwartz.

Schwartz routinely hears people say, “If only fat people worked harder, they would lose weight.” But she and others challenge the hysteria surrounding the global “obesity epidemic,” which defines 17 percent of children age 2 to 19 as overweight.

Paul Campos, author of The Obesity Myth, argues that Americans are, in general, only 15 pounds heavier than they were 20 years ago. It is public health standards, not our bodies, that have changed, becoming more rigid in defining the majority of Americans as “overweight.”

That news is small consolation for students subjected to harassment and prejudice, sometimes unrelentingly, from peers and teachers because they are heavier than others. Many have been frightened into hating their bodies by grim medical reports about childhood obesity. Too many believe that dieting is the only solution, even though study after study shows dieting doesn’t work.

Michael Loewy, a psychology professor at the University of North Dakota, paints an unsettling picture in his essay Working with Fat Children in Schools: “It is amazing that so many fat children survive adolescence, given the hatred and meanness directed at them.”

‘I Put Myself Down’

At Sequoia High School’s Teen Resource Center, Dana Schuster, a speaker with the Health at Every Size program, has gathered a group of students to discuss how the war on obesity has taken a toll on their self-esteem.

“In my family they tell me, ‘You’d look nice if you were smaller,’” says Celia, 15.

“I think I put myself down more than anyone,” adds Rachel, 18, referring to the negative thoughts filling her head about her size.

One girl says she’s more confident and accepting of herself now that she’s in high school, yet she’s just finished a juice fast, essentially starving herself. “I felt good. I lost the 10 pounds,” she says.

Naomi, 16, listens quietly to other students’ comments about the frustrations of gym class and clothes shopping. Then she says simply, “It hurts when you weigh a lot.”

Victims of size discrimination often suffer from depression, anxiety and loneliness. They may also suffer from low self-esteem, voluntarily serving as the butt of jokes — the stereotypical funny fat kid.

“If they say things to you, it doesn’t matter,” says Max, one of two boys in the group, shrugging his shoulders. Max says he responds to insults with humor.

Naomi does, too. But she also has a more straightforward comeback: “I tell them, ‘It’s my body; if you don’t like it, don’t look at it.’”

ALL sizes

Children learn anti-fat attitudes from many sources, including adults who talk negatively about their own bodies or who allow size-based teasing to go unchecked.

“A lot of people who don’t have this [size] difference aren’t aware how painful it can be,” says Frances Berg, a nutritionist and international authority on weight and eating based in North Dakota. “When someone tells a fat joke, the response should not be to laugh, or even to be silent.”

Many students say teachers or other adults rarely speak up about size bias, embracing the myth that thin always is better than fat.

It’s a myth some see the medical community presenting as fact.

“If one already prejudges fat people as gluttonous or lazy, it is not very difficult to think that they are also sick,” writes J. Eric Oliver in Fat Politics. That means even a visit to the school nurse doesn’t feel safe for some fat kids who are used to the medical community trying to “fix” their size.

Connie Sobczak, executive director of Body Positive, a nonprofit based in Berkeley, Calif., that helps teens with body issues, says the medical community does a disservice to thin kids by focusing solely on kids who are overweight.

“There are so many [children of all sizes] who aren’t eating well, and not [being active],” Sobczak says. “We ignore all those children, then we focus and shame the fat children.”

Size-related stereotypes, of course, work both ways — against fat and thin kids.

“We can’t just talk about it as an issue for fat kids. The ones who are ‘perfect’ get overlooked, too. It’s hard for them to talk about being blond and thin and looking like Barbie,” says Debora Burgard, a California psychotherapist and creator of BodyPositive.com (unrelated to the Body Positive group in Berkeley). “They have a stereotyping problem, too.”

Those prone to believe one stereotype often are prone to embrace other stereotypes, as well.

“In fact,” writes Oliver in Fat Politics, “people who have strong anti-fat attitudes also tend to be more hostile toward minorities and the poor.”

Stigma-by-association also exists. A recent study by British psychologist Jason Halford shows that prejudice against fat people is so strong that biases are also formed against people who associate with fat people.

Fear of Fat

Responding to concerns about childhood obesity, John S. Martinez School in New Haven, Conn., was one of the first K-8 public schools in its district to rid its campus of junk food. Last year the school hosted a pilot program introducing more physical activity, healthier cafeteria foods and nutrition education.

The inner-city school with predominantly Latino students offers swim classes using the school’s state-of-the-art pool. Students also can earn 30 to 45 extra minutes of gym class each day. The school’s health clinic monitors each child’s health and weight loss.

One physical education teacher says she sees the effects of the obesity epidemic firsthand, with younger children being diagnosed with hypertension, diabetes and elevated cholesterol levels.

“Most of them get on the scales without problems,” she says, but for other students the process is “stressful” and “hard to approach.” She contacts parents to discuss the best ways to intervene.

One winter afternoon, with snowflakes swirling outside the windows, several 7th- and 8th-graders gather at the school to talk about what happens when their parents get that kind of call.

“I hate it,” says Michelle, 13. “My mother makes me drink diet soda.”

The 8th-graders say all these efforts to get or keep them thin — eliminating vending machines, serving salads for lunch, increasing their gym time — have increased their fear rather than reduced their weight.

Twelve-year-old Arianna worries about high cholesterol. The message she gets from her parents and her doctor is that she must lose weight to get healthy. “I get depressed if I think about it too much,” she says. When she’s depressed, Arianna confesses, she sneaks Snickers and Milky Ways.

Emily worries her extra weight could lead to a heart attack. “I’m not going to be big in high school,” says the 12-year-old, shaking her head from side to side. “No, I’m going to go on a diet.”

Focus on fitness, not weight

In 2003, Arkansas was the first state to require schools to chart its students’ BMIs. Three years later, the state’s percentage of heavy school children remains the same: 38 percent. But another statistic has emerged: 13 percent of parents reported that their children had been teased because of the new program, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Weighing children regularly does not help them become thin, says Miriam Berg, president of the national Council on Size & Weight Discrimination. Berg believes promoting weight loss as public policy is misguided for three reasons:

• the policy targets fat kids and promotes discrimination against them;
• teaches all kids that fatness should be avoided at all costs, resulting in dangerous diet practices and eating disorders; and
• ignores the nutritional, exercise and health needs of kids who are average weight or thinner than average.

Instead of forced weighings and BMI checks that focus all attention on heavier kids, Schwartz, of the Yale Center for Eating and Weight Disorders, says schools should develop creative ways to get all students more active. She suggests PE classes that emphasize different choices of movement, not just team sports.

Laura Perdikomatis, chair of Woodside High School’s physical education department in Woodside, Calif., couldn’t agree more.

“I think we’re turning them off,” she says, of mandated fitness tests that are harder for larger students to complete.

She says coaches, who often use running as a punishment, sometimes stand in the way of progress. Perdikomatis has heard a group of PE teachers, for example, laugh at the very concept of Health At Every Size.

“They think everyone should be the same size,” she says.

Perdikomatis just received a grant to furnish her high school’s fitness center with games like the interactive “Dance, Dance, Revolution” and a stationary bike/Play Station II combination. The equipment is not only fun, Perdikomatis says, but it also puts the focus on heart rate rather than on the mechanics of a fitness test.

Frances Berg, founder of the Healthy Weight Journal, says that’s the way it should be.

“It’s important to practice healthy habits no matter how much you weigh,” Berg says. “It’s not the weight; it’s how active you are. (And) kids have to enjoy what they’re doing, or else it won’t work.”

_______________________________________

 Teaching Tolerance’s educational kits and subscriptions to its magazine are FREE to: classroom teachers, school librarians, school counselors, school administrators, professors of education, leaders of homeschool networks, youth directors at houses of worship and employees of youth-serving nonprofit organizations.

More size-acceptance resources from Tolerance.org include:

 

Tips For Teachers
People usually think about diversity in terms of ethnicity, class, gender and ability. Fat children also have a unique perspective on the world. Learn to see fat children as a valid part of diversity

 

LABELS: The ‘O’ Words
The size acceptance community embraces the label “fat” over words like “obese” and “overweight.”

 

Kids Come In All Sizes
Use this workshop to teach all students to feel good about their bodies.

 

This Story at Work
Do you possess anti-fat biases? Take a free, confidential online and find out what’s lurking in your subconscious. After taking the test, try to identify steps you can take to offset or minimize biases you may hold related to size or other factors.

Popularity: 55% [?]

ELEGANT PLUS CONTENT TAGS:Activism, body image, Dieting, Health, Junk Science, Musings from the Editors Chair, obesity, Plus Size, Size Acceptance, women Women and Media

 

Obesity Contagious! Beware of Fat Friends and Other Nasty Headlines

from Elegant Plus Magazine

In a week that saw the opening of the delightfully fat friendly, feel-good movie Hairspray and the celebrated third installment of Mo’Nique’s F.A.T. Chance self-esteem and size-acceptance television special on the Oxygen Network, a study of an entirely different nature reared its head in the esteemed New England Journal of Medicine from researchers at Harvard and the University of California.  Within hours of the related press-releases stating “Obesity is Socially Contagious” hundreds of articles had appeared and news outlets across a variety of media picked up the story.

What raised the alarm bells first for me was realizing that unlike many “stories” that make daily appearances in our culture in the infamous War on Obesity, this one had more legs than most.  Thoughtful news shows like Jim Lehrer on PBS and columnists at the well respected New York Times took up the story, while more tabloid type outlets gleefully declared that you should beware of fat friends and family members because they could make YOU fat!  Yet not once did I hear any real examination of the science behind the study, NOR a consideration of the implications such thinking might have on the lives of large individuals who are already targets of bullying and ostracization.

As an academic who has been trained to cast a critical eye on scientific methodology and underlying assumptions  before accepting the conclusions of any study as fact no matter from which institution it comes,  the media’s tendency to embrace every study that comes out of a laboratory as fact with a capital F has always disturbed me. Perhaps especially so because of the prevalence of hype and sound bytes throughout all types of media in the United States today.   Equally disturbing is the frequency of Junk Science and statistic manipulation used for a whole host of agendas, not the least of which is the support of the diet and pharmaceutical industries.   My first inclination was to contact NAAFA (National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance) to see if their health experts had addressed this specific study and invite them to write a guest article for Elegant Plus.   I received a cordial reply and the press release they had prepared on the subject which didn’t seem to really target this specific study, but more the general underlying hype surrounding the media’s War on Obesity, with the promise of a Guest Article if I wanted one.  I encouraged the latter option and sincerely hope one comes.  I am very interested in  publishing an educated and well informed rebuttal from someone equiped to take a critical look at this study for our readers.

So far, the only clearly argued discussion that refutes the specifics of the study based on data and methodology that I’ve seen comes from Sandy Szwarc’s blog Junk Food Science.  She’s a nurse with a biological science degree that equips her better than most to think about health related studies critically.  I highly recommend reading her article “Oh what a tangled web we weave” to begin to bring the hype on this particular obesity study into a balanced perspective. 

But regardless of the rightness or wrongness of the science there is another very real and dangerous repercussion from this type of media spin, especially on women.   Many of the lead drummers in this charge to “fix” what they view as a  looming public health crisis, fail to take into account the impact of their language, rhetoric and social messaging.   Screaming headlines like “Obesity is Contagious” and “Fat Friends Could Make You Fat”  does not effectively guilt anyone into changing lifestyle patterns, which is their purported intent.  It only makes people feel worse about themselves, lowers self-esteem and now piles on the guilt of harming the people closest to them.  How could this be a positive and productive state of affairs?

 In fact equating weight with lifestyle is one of the dangerous underlying assumptions permeating society.   The two are so enmeshed in popular thinking that fat, obese and unhealthy lifestyle are considered interchangeable synonyms (as are the equally false thin, slender, healthy lifestyle) , the first two the current synonyms of headline choice.  We, as a society, somehow think that simply by looking at (or weighing) an individual we have the ability (and sadly the right to judge) how well they take care of themselves.  But the fact is weight and obesity are far more complex than that, with some individuals naturally heavier than others, others suffering from medication side-effects and a host of other medical reasons.  There are women who eat healthier than most and run marathons who will never be slender.  There are skinny minis who eat chips and soda and junk food every day, and rarely lift so much as a  toe to get any exercise.   Simply, you cannot tell by someone’s weight alone what kind of lifestyle choices they make. 

 Think how differently the emotional impact of this research would read if the headlines said “Unhealthy Lifestyles are Socially Contagious”.   That truly is a different meaning than the one currently screaming across our media sphere, since not all fat people have an unhealthy lifestyle and many thin ones do.  Not only would the scientific data have a better shot of upholding such a theory which is already debatable as junk science, but the social implications would be less damaging to individuals already judged strictly by their body mass.  This leads to a downward spiral of social and self-loathing that adversally affects an individual’s mental health.  Now add in other’s fear of just knowing a fat person and we have a recipe for permissable discrimination.  I don’t think that is the path most of these so called “health advocates”  truly had in mind.  But it is the one we, as a society, are fast going down.  

Popularity: 24% [?]

ELEGANT PLUS CONTENT TAGS:Activism, business, Old Navy, Plus Size Clothing, Shopping Review super size clothing

News has recently broken that Old Navy will no longer be carrying plus-size clothing in their brick and mortar stores, although will continue to do so on-line.  They say the line has not done well, and as their parent company Gap, Inc. continues to struggle with its bottom line, this news follows on the heels of the closure of their Forth and Towne concept (which incidentally carried up to size 20) in an attempt to shore up their core company.  They are keeping The Gap and Banana Republic concepts open in addition to Old Navy.  The practice of carrying more extended sizes on-line than in-store is used in both these stores as well.

 On the surface this appears to be good business sense, but the announcement seems  to be setting off a firestorm of protest across the plus-size community.  Why?

Let’s look at some of the criticism of this business move:

1.  Although technically available in stores to try on, feel and purchase, the reality is that the Old Navy plus-size clothes line was only available in a very, very few locations.  Furthermore, the racks tended to be pushed back to small corners of these stores so consumers didn’t know they were there.  And marketing of the plus-size line was barely existent. How were customers to know that there were clothes available in sizes up to 4X at any of their plus catering locations?  Of course numbers weren’t good, in spite of a consumer population that could easily give them good numbers.

2.  Across many chat groups that are ablaze with the topic, the issue of fit keeps coming up.  It seems the Old Navy plus line didn’t hit the mark with fit, with many people referencing the straight size Old Navy line which goes up to XXL and is staying in stores as fitting better.  Since many full-figured consumers wear between a size 14 and 20, many of those customers have been sticking with the regular line for fit reasons.  The question then raised is the business problem not the “plus-size” concept but rather lack of understanding of the target customer’s needs?  Might a little more time and money invested in issues of technical design reap better sales and consumer confidence? Elegant Plus addressed this lack of understanding within the corporate apparel world in our article “The Sizing Thing” last year. It would appear, some things are slow to change, and Old Navy is a casualty of this faux-pas and mode of thinking.

Old Navy will continue to be available on-line in plus-sizes, along with extended size offerings at the Gap which are not available in stores (up to size 20).  To find  these listings and more in plus-sizes up to 34W, check out the Elegant Plus Classic Plus-Size Clothing Directory.

 If you wish to register concerns or complaints about this business decision you can reach Old Navy customer service two ways.  Enough negative feedback and backlash on this move may change their minds, but remember at the end of the day money is what talks.  Shop Old Navy plus-sizes and support them if you think they are doing a good job.  If not, let them know what would make you shop there and be specific and honest about how much money they are losing when you take your business elsewhere.  Call 1-800-Old-Navy or e-mail custserv@oldnavy.com .  Also, please  feel free to discuss, vent and comment below. The more open discussion about these issues from the consumers, the more things will change.

Popularity: 46% [?]