• A 12-year-old girl who was lost in the Blue Mountains while hiking with her family stayed warm with a flag she found in a vacant cabin. • Female artists in China find it hard to succeed in the male-dominated art world but they have "some of the most innovative work around." • New bills have been introduced to the House and Senate to help combat domestic violence against Native American women. • A nightclub that banned fat women (in their words, "morbidly obese") because they wanted to "protect" their failing business overturned the ban when they realized not letting people into your business is really bad for business. • Meanwhile Fabulous magazine finds that most men are content (link mildly NSFW) with their size 12 significant others (although most women still want to lose weight). • Why are people quick to call a man gay for experimenting with another man while maintaining their hetero status but shrug of straight women's lesbian kisses? • A graphic novel by Katherine Arnoldi called The Amazing True Story of A Teenage Single Mom supports rather than mocks teenage mothers. • With Barbie failing Mattel releases "My Meebas" a plush toy...in a tube...with a LCD screen, or something? You know you are getting old when new toys confuse you.

• A choir teacher in San Diego called a student an "ugly brat," then literally kicked her out of the classroom. • Disturbing fertility news: even half a serving of soy a day can lower a man's sperm count — effects are more pronounced if he's overweight. • Disturbing adoption news: DNA tests show an abducted Guatemalan baby was adopted by a US couple. Several more abducted babies have been found in Guatemalan orphanages, leading some to believe the practice is widespread. • And some reassuring news: belly and thigh fat is a great source of stem cells, which could cure disease and even remove wrinkles. So eat that donut — unless you're a man, you want a baby, and it's made of soy.

Do you think a 500 lb. woman doesn't know that she's obese? Do you think that a woman gains 50 lbs. without noticing? The Post's Marina Vataj writes, "While friends tell friends and loved ones to stop smoking, drinking, shopping and even sleeping around, addressing a friend's weight remains taboo." Damn straight it does. Drinking and smoking are vices you can live without. Eating is required for survival. When does overeating become a problem? When is eating an addiction? Surely everyone is different and the tipping point is different for each individual. But with all of the weight-loss ads, hyperthin celebrities and calorie-cutting segments on the news, it's hard to believe that any woman would be oblivious about being overweight. Even if framed in the "I'm doing this because I care" context, the fact remains that ones body and what one puts in it is extremely personal. So isn't choosing to "discuss" a weight problem with a friend actually choosing to announce your problem with a friend's weight? Do you even go there? What do you say?

Who's Your Fatty [NY Post]

Remember that eating disorders are inherently an existential struggle over the very notion of free will.
You can worsen them, and you can encourage them, but you cannot singlehandedly instill them in your kids, nor can you prevent them. The coolest thing about my mom is that she kind of got this. Her reaction to my adolescent 800-calorie-a-day diet was one of concern but also, exasperation; she had specifically taken such great care to rear me on healthy food and ABSOLUTELY NO MENTION OF MY WEIGHT; I was not even at all overweight, and now, as my big display of free will and rebellion I'd chosen anorexia? She made it clear she thought it was fundamentally shallow, and intellectually, I agreed, but by that point I had almost given up on free will when it came to eating; food issues were just my DESTINY, my curse and fate and blah blah blah. Anyway, that was probably mostly depression. I didn't medicate it, but eventually I suppose it subsided, and my intellect took the wheel again, which was lucky.

With that in mind, ask yourself, are you shallow?
What do you most want for your kid? Happiness and some sort of fulfillment, right? People of all sizes achieve that! The negative correlation between happiness and excess pounds, such that it exists, is totally all in your head, as the field of duh studies has recently confirmed. So if your kids think they're fat, you need to chew on this question: does that have anything to do with you? (Chewing on said question, btw, is a good way to stop yourself from nagging your poor kid!) Like I said, are you shallow? If so, is that the trait you'd most like to pass onto our progeny? (Please, for the good of the country, answer "No.") Conversely, are you so dogmatically un-shallow that they think you just don't have any idea what sort of world world they're living in? That was sort of my problem. In the end it was a good one to have. It was like, hey, the one genetic advantage I have here is that my parents are bright people with strong moral values who don't give a shit how fat I get, except inasmuch as they know I don't exactly have health insurance.

Be honest and remember it's not a big deal.
Acting like a kid's chubbing out is a grave issue that must be discussed in hushed tones is probably not the best idea, especially if they have the sort of grandfather (mine) who will go up to them and play the "Pinch an inch" game. While the Pinch an Inch game is annoying, I never really doubted that my grandfather loved me. I think he just thought kids today spent too much time watching the idiot box and not enough playing elaborate war games in the woods. And he had a point! I asked my friend Don, a former fat kid, whether his mom (a personal idol of mine) had ever said anything to him about his weight, and he recalled a time one summer at the age of 13 when he was eating a piece of pizza while wearing a swimsuit and somehow the topic of his blubber came up. Laughing, she agreed, "Yeah, you really have to do something about that." A few years later, when he stopped eating meat, she worried she'd scarred him; but seriously, Don was picked on his entire childhood for being a fat kid, and she basically played it perfectly, choosing to encourage his positive traits (such as he is fucking hilarious) and accept that he was never going to be as physically attractive as she is. (She is, to be fair here, really pretty.)

Don recommends this movie.
It is, he says, his "Exile in Guyville."

Earlier: Sometimes A Parent's Words Can Bear The Weight Of The World

Image via Skip To My Lou

Clearly, the effort being made to fight the obesity epidemic is resulting in what Parker-Pope calls "collateral" damage. From commercials to music videos and magazines, the pressure to be thin is all around us, and it would seem few of us are immune. And interestingly enough, when this topic came up via e-mail at the Jezebel virtual HQ, everyone had something to say. "The more weight I lose the fatter i feel," one editor sighed. One editor wrote: "I’ve often thought that when I think I’m thin I’m actually thinner – like it’s some psychological thing as in, if I think I’m thin my metabolism actually works harder. Which would explain why I’m so damn fat now after feeling so damn fat for months on end." Someone else added: "When I beat myself up for being gross and fat years ago I was actually 30 pounds thinner; now that I'm heavier I'm more forgiving of myself and less depressed." Someone else explained: "Getting super thin can fuck with your head. I'm naturally between 125-130. I was totally happy about that, until I got really depressed and got down to 117 without really trying. I was there for like, 9 months, and I realized, holy shit I can be skinny. Of course, when I was no longer depressed, I gained the ten pounds back. That's when I
started thinking I was fat."

It's no big secret that mental and physical health are linked. And as someone who has been thin and sad, fat and sad and fat and happy (never thin and happy) I often wonder about which is more important: Mental health or physical health? In a perfect world you wouldn't have to choose, of course. You'd reach optimal levels in both arenas and live happily ever after in a cottage under a rainbow. But if things keep going in this direction — where kids start dieting in middle school — aren't we going to have a mental health epidemic to go with the obesity one? (And, back to the earlier question: Which is worse? Feeling fat? Or being fat?)

'Feeling Fat' Is Worse Than Being It, German Study Finds [Science Daily]
Many Normal-Weight Teens Feel Fat [NY Times]
The danger of children who insist that they are fat [Times Of London]

She continues: "It's unbelievable to me, even to this day. They had barbed wire all around camp to keep us in so we didn't sneak out at night to go find food elsewhere. One parent sent menus from local restaurants nearby. Because we were so deprived, we would at night read the menu items out loud and imagine how they tasted."

Though Wellspring has success stories, it also has kids like Jahcobie Cosom, 18, of Dorchester, Mass. Cosom lost 167 pounds at the school and 30 during his first month home. But he's gained 260 pounds in less than a year and now weighs 562 lbs. (He is scheduled to undergo gastric bypass surgery this summer.) Still, parents who have tried everything see "therapeutic boarding school" as their last chance. "It will bankrupt us to do this," says one mom whose 17-year-old son weighs 300 pounds and suffers from high blood pressure. "But we were looking at that — or his life."

As for Klein, she says she's fed up with "fatnalysis."

People can analyze it to death. People can say you're fat because you're filling a void, or you eat for all these emotional reasons. I said I don't need to focus on this anymore. It doesn't matter why I'm fat. Let's fix it. I don't think fixing it involves searching into my past and analyzing every last reason why I like cheese. It's much more important for me to focus on my daily habits and what can I do to possibly change certain habits and give myself tools to get through whatever I have to get through. Especially as a child, you don't need to hear about it all the time. Focus on developing talents.

Here's a question: Anyone can lose weight when they're taken out of their usual environment. How can you be sure a camp or "therapeutic school" is going to work long term? And is it worth bankruptcy to find out?

'Fat School' [Washington Post]
Fatgirl Slim [Newsweek]

Some reporter interviewed you about the improvement in metabolism in the lab mice. You said,

"I think it's an important result because not only does it say that not all fat is bad, but I think it points to a special aspect of fat where we need to do more research."

Love,
Kim Kardashian.

Scientists Find Something Good About A Big Bottom [Reuters]

Hi Tracie, So I'm writing this story for [redacted] about people who grew up as chubby kids and became successful, more svelte adults (Obama, Bill Clinton, Gwen Stefani, Meredith Viera, etc.). I want to hear from other people who struggled with weight issues when they were kids. I heard you might be someone to talk about this. If I'm totally wrong or you're uncomfortable speaking on the record, I understand completely! But let me know if you'd be willing to chat for the article, we can talk on background/anonymously as well. I am a former fat kid and know how these things go. Anyway, let me know!

Related: Would You Rather Be Fat Or Blank? [NBC News]

Now, surely the Daily Mail can argue that Lisa Marie's pregnancy may have occasioned her to consume an excess of food — indeed, that she was using pregnancy as an excuse to do so — but the truth is that for some time we have been watching a steady erosion in the customary grace period allotted to a female celebrity's figure maintenance to account for her part in the creation of a new human being. And while both Ms. Barberie-Reynolds and Ms. Presley stand to gain financially from the blurring of the lines between the two forms of weight gain — and that is to ignore the myriad other ways female celebrities have managed to line their own pockets, in addition to those of the celebrity-industrial complex, through the conception (or failure to conceive) children — I am beginning to wonder if the whole thing isn't a little, well, degrading to the very culture of human life the media is supposed to be celebrating when we fetishize fertility/eschew the subject of abortion in all consumer magazines and blockbuster movies/pay seven-figure ransoms for baby pictures.

No, seriously, actually, whatever. It's just this week's sign of the apocalypse etc. etc. But you know.

Lawlor's evidence implies that diet and exercise are the major factors in the childhood obesity epidemic, which is probably why maternal BMI has more of an effect than paternal BMI. Mothers are still the parents who tend to grocery shop and plan meals, so it's no surprise that overweight children are consuming the same unhealthy foods that their mothers do. "Our study indicates that developmental overnutrition has not been a major driver of the recent obesity epidemic," Lawlor concludes. "Therefore, interventions that aim to improve people's diet and to increase their physical activity levels could slow or even halt the [obesity] epidemic."

Are Fat Moms To Blame For Fat Kids? Answer Unclear [Reuters]
Maternal Obesity Not Strongly Linked To Obesity In Offspring Says Study [EurekAlert]

With the help of a therapist, she conquered her eating disorder. But now I was totally confused on what messages to send my kids about food. Of course I wanted Marcy healthy — but damn, she sure had looked good when she was thin. Except for the hair.

ake got big like a beanstalk, like a fairy-tale mushroom, big like Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. Jake got big overnight, went from boy to man in a twinkling, so quickly that I really thought if I sat by his bed, I could see him grow. His feet and hands turned massive. His forearms became immense.

Last summer, a few months before my dad died, Marcy and I went to visit him. As she settled in beside him on his sofa, he observed, with cruel accuracy, "You look like you're putting on some weight." Marcy burst into tears and ran out of the room. I wanted to run as well, from a rush of old memories: Dad tucking a slim sister on either side of me before snapping the picture for our Christmas card. Dad frowning at me at Thanksgiving dinner, scolding "Not so much pie!" in front of everyone. Dad offering to pay me a hundred bucks if I'd just lose 25 pounds ... He was a kind man, a good man, but he didn't understand about girls and size and shame. Though he did realize something was amiss, at least: On our next visit, he confided to me that he'd told a number of female friends about his remark to Marcy, and that every last one of them upbraided him for being a heartless pig. Jake happened to be along on this visit, and Dad took the opportunity to ask him: "So, what do you weigh these days?"

"Three hundred 20," Jake said.

My dad smiled indulgently. Then he turned and asked me, "How can two kids be so different?"

I hope she has sons someday. I hope they're big, too. I hope she gets the chance to revel in what otherwise has been a curse for her. It doesn't make up for society's scorn, not completely. But it's oddly, beautifully empowering, just the same.

Living Large [Philadelphia Magazine]

Oh, and about that obesity epidemic: Science Daily reports that, after examining the average population weight gain in the United States over the past 42 years, British doctors are arguing that claims about the problem "often exceed the scientific evidence" and that "the categories of normal, overweight and obese is entirely arbitrary and at odds with the underlying evidence about the association between body mass index and mortality." Health economists and epidemiologists counter that the associated health care problems associated with obesity — diabetes, heart disease, elevated blood pressure — are not only well-established but growing. Whatever the experts say, the least we can do today, if not get on a treadmill and eat a spinach salad with steamed chicken, is exercise our right to vote.

Actually, A Long Healthy Life Costs More [MSNBC]
Fat People Cheaper To Treat, Study Says [Breitbart]
Is The Obesity Epidemic Exaggerated? [ScienceDaily]

Dubious connection yes, but the premise of the book isn't even the problem, it's the way Walsh encourages readers to clean up their lives and their stomachs through guilt and humiliation.

There are a lot of delicious, fattening foods out there. Resisting them might be something you have to do whenever you're hungry, at every meal, for the rest of your life. Sounds daunting, but the only other option is making bad choices that go against the life you want... well, it's your call.

Hmm, Walsh's real talk sounds suspiciously like Mike "No Chubbies" Koralchyk, the asshole gym owner (sample slogan: "Too chubby, never find a hubby") in Denver. Remember: he fancied himself a "truth-teller," too.

Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat? [Amazon]
Earlier: Mike "No Chubbies" Koralchyk: Portrait Of The New American Hyperasshole

According to the article, fat bloggers "Celebrate their full figures and call on readers to accept their bodies, quit dieting and get on with life." There's no focus on diets, but there's no encouragement to pig out, either: "One of the first obstacles to fat acceptance is breaking down the question of whether being fat is a choice," says Shapely Prose blogger Kate Harding. "No fat acceptance advocate is saying you should sit around and wildly overeat. What we're saying is that exercise and a balanced diet do not make everyone thin."

Of course, thin people have blogs as well (the pro-ana presence on the Web has been well-documented). But while Hollywood and fashion magazines continue to promote an extremely-skinny woman as the ideal, the reality is that most chicks are not under a size 6. Isn't it okay to be proud of that fact? Plus, in a recent survey, women were asked if they'd rather have Jennifer Aniston's body or be a millionaire and 78% said they'd take the money. Cash buys you a trainer if you want it — or more Haägen-Dazs. Call it "extroverted" or whatever you like: In contrast to how skinny girls are nervous about staying that way, these writers make being "fat" seem like fun.

Sociable People Get Fat, Worriers Thin: Japan Study [Reuters]
In the Fatosphere, Big Is in, or at Least Accepted [NY Times]
Have Bod Like Jennifer Aniston, Or $1M [CBS News]
Earlier: Teen Vogue Message Boards: "I Gained Alot Of Weight Over The Summer. Its Disgusting."
Dying To Be Thin

With its rude, slutty and unapologetic programming, Oxygen is clearly Samantha. Strippers fellating beer bottles, plastic surgery advocating Janice Dickinson and her modeling agency, and re-runs of Absolutely Fabulous just scream Samantha with their combination of glitter, foul mouths and trash. (Remember when Carrie caught Samantha blowing the UPS guy? Total Oxygen material.)

Wedding-obsessed WE: Women's Entertainment is Charlotte. WE has four shows devoted to the wedding-industrial complex: Bridezillas, Platinum Weddings, My Big, Fat Fabulous Wedding, and Rich Bride, Poor Bride. [Jesus. -Ed.] WE also reflects Charlotte's overwhelming sense of entitlement (of course she deserved a multimillion dollar Park Avenue apartment as compensation for a failed marriage!). Of WE's newest offering, Party Mama$, Patterson opines, the level of entitlement has "previously [been] seen only on MTV's My Super Sweet 16".

Finally, Lifetime, the old guard of women's television channels, is Carrie. Lifetime has a serious side, like Carrie, with its made-for-TV movies about "terminal diseases and/or children in peril." But, as Patterson says, Lifetime is "quaint and mildly daffy," with its Will & Grace reruns and embrace of psychics. Just like Carrie, who enjoys a "mildly daffy" pun, loves hanging out with her main gay Stanford, and is always wearing those mystical head wraps!

But whither Miranda? Where's the kind of judgmental, career woman-oriented programming? I guess Star Jones does have that show on Court TV, and Miranda does say the phrase "I'm a lawyer," at least once per episode, but it's not really a perfect match. Television executives take note! A major hole in lady viewing must be filled post-haste!

Who's the Fairest of Them All?: A comparison of all of the women's television network [Slate]

Earlier: Bad Girls Club: Stripper Mom and Porn Star Have Threesome With Dude

SIZE ZERO NEWS ANCHOR: I don't know, there was just something that REALLY pissed me off about this!
EMME: blah blah blah why do we buy into this blah blah blah magazines.
SZNA: blah blah
EMME: blah blah acceptance
SZNA: You go girl!
EMME: You go girl!

So to recap: Jennifer Love Hewitt gained some weight. She is a celebrity. The paparazzi snapped a picture corroborating this. This is not yellowcake in Niger or Shakespeare's authorship of all nine hundred collected works of Shakespeare or even the theory of evolution. No one is disputing the facts: one woman; one bikini, a little tighter than it was before. So why the shitstorm? Why, when we already went through this just months ago with Tyra? Why why why are we still calling it "empowering" when a woman makes her weight fluctuations into a career? Is the American populace so ignorant and dumbed down that the only thing that can keep their attention is the process by which the consumption of more calories results in more body weight and vice versa? No but really truly?

This is Dianne, my favorite camper from the first installment of Fat Camp. You can read more about her here. I was glad she made a few cameos in Return to Fat Camp, but honestly, I was hungry for more.

In addition, some of the drugs, like rimonabant, give users an increased risk of mental health problems. Those taking rimonabant were 40% more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety. (Rimonabant is sold in the UK under the name Acomplia, but is not available in the US because it's so likely to make patients commit suicide. Thanks, FDA! )


Doctors say that selling anti-obesity drugs over the counter perpetuates the myth that losing weight is as easy as popping a pill. Professor Gareth Williams, professor of medicine at the University of Bristol, has earth-shattering news: "Globally, obesity is spiralling out of control and will only be reined in by public health campaigns that somehow persuade people to eat less and exercise more." Yeah, but then the drug companies wouldn't rake in billions of dollars!

Fat Pills Give Modest Weight Loss [BBC News]
Weight-loss Drug Increases Chance Of Depression [Guardian]

Tyra tried to make an "Oh no you didn't" type face, but she may have been too shocked to carry it out completely. BTW, you know she's totally wearing Spanx under that thing.

The thing is, the woman actually understood the concept of the exercise and that someone would have to end up with the label, so she repeatedly suggested it for the heavier women, thus, offending them. Because she had the nerve to, you know, actually carry out this retarded game that Tyra concocted, the other girls were gleeful that she ended up with the label at the end.

But for real, there was nothing as offensive as those fucking nude suits. Look at her camel toe! For real, is that a clit hood in there?

Back in 1977, the National Institute of Health hosted its second conference on obesity and weight control. "The importance of exercise in weight control is less than might be believed," the assembled experts concluded. And still, the workout culture of the 80s exploded, aerobics, Jazzercise and all.

But, Taubes argues, it's not exercising that affects your weight. It's the way your body is wired.

The key is that among the many things regulated in this homeostatic system—along with blood pressure and blood sugar, body temperature, respiration, etc.—is the amount of fat we carry. From this biological or homeostatic perspective, lean people are not those who have the willpower to exercise more and eat less. They are people whose bodies are programmed to send the calories they consume to the muscles to be burned rather than to the fat tissue to be stored—the Lance Armstrongs of the world. The rest of us tend to go the other way, shunting off calories to fat tissue, where they accumulate to excess. This shunting of calories toward fat cells to be stored or toward the muscles to be burned is a phenomenon known as fuel partitioning.

The Scientist and the Stairmaster [New York]
Exercise Will Make You Healthy, But Probably Not Thinner [WSJ]

Thirty minutes later, he felt like he had been stung by 50 bees and his skin turned black, he said. "It looked like I had been hit with a garden hose," Dr. Young said. "I thought, I am going to lose some skin and I am going to have to ask one of my colleagues to do a skin graft."

Another doctor, C. B. Boswell, injected it into his stomach, which became "so enlarged that he looked six months pregnant." His nurse tried it on her thighs, which "became so swollen with liquid that she wore panty hose to keep them from jiggling."

We first heard about lipodissolve in a tabloid (naturally), as an explanation for why Britney's butt was "lumpy" in appearance, and then smooth. (It's not just a rumor, there are pictures of her at the lipdissolve office!) Bottom (heh) line? This stuff appears to do the job some of the time, but not consistently. Dr. Young is doing a pilot study on 10 volunteers. "It would be good if this turns out to work, but if it doesn't work and all these people are wasting their money, we need to say that too," he said. So as images of the Wicked Witch Of the West ("I'm melting!") play in our heads, we ask: would you inject a non-FDA approved drug cocktail into your thighs when doctors say "the shots can cause stinging, swelling, redness and bumps" and "inflammation indicates the medication is working"?

Feel Pudgy? There's a Shot for That [NY Times]

So Britney had a little "Gimme More" of her own, but that literally was the least of her problems during the performance, in which she writhed nonchalantly like a pacifier-sucker on ketamine at a San Francisco rave (Been there, done that, and it was actually kind of awesome?). That said, her new song is already in the Top 40, so Brit's "paunch" may be jiggling its way to the bank one more time.
Britney Was Bad, Yes. But Fat? [CNN]

Men 'Need Help To Combat Poor Body Image' [News.com.au]