Category Archives: FatnessInGeneral

Convenient Seat Belt Extenders for Cars

IMG_20130302_135115I’ve mentioned before that I have a seat belt extender for my car (provided by Toyota). In other cars I often use a shoulder/lap belt as a lap belt only, which is less safe, but the only way I can buckle the seat belt.   The friend I carpool with recently got a new car, and once again, the seat belt is too small — it was tight even with the shoulder belt behind me.

So I started googling and discovered there’s more available out there than the last time I checked.. In particular, there’s more alternatives to the “permanently install item in the car” items.   An important question for “click-in” extenders is the size and type of the metal tongue.  Type A  has a 7/8″ wide metal tongue.  Another is type B, with a 1″ wide metal tongue. Between the two they will fit most cars.

There are a few other types, including the tongue type used by Hondas and the tongue type for GM cars made 1968-1999.   They also come in a few different styles.

I ended up ordering a 2-Pack of Car Seat Belt Extenders, 1 type A and another type B.  Thanks to the 7/8″ extender I was able to wear the 3-point seat belt properly in my carpool yesterday.  I also intend to take them with me if I’m renting a car.

Update: Turns out my carpool buddy asked about extenders while buying the car at the dealership and picked some up today gratis.  :) I’m still glad I have some for travel but was definitely a nice move on the Ford dealership’s part.

Does It Matter?

Tonight I overheard some thin 20somethings discussing fat people as a group (nothing said about the 40ish couple at a nearby table). The terms and statements made were rather derogatory. There was laughter. Then their discussion moved to other topics.

Image courtesy of Stocky Bodies

Image courtesy of Stocky Bodies

This wasn’t pleasant. I tweeted about it. I then focused on dinner with the man of the house.

Why?

In the microcosm of this hour and this room, their comments did not necessarily have to affect me.  Their opinions did not cause me to lose my job or my home. And their finding fat people unsexy doesn’t undo what we did this morning. ;)

At the same time, however, the anti-fat views expressed by a group at a bar  encourages and reinforces anti-fat views at the societal level. Society’s view that anyone can lose weight, and that fat people are stupid or in denial or lazy to not be thin,  makes it less likely that I will be hired than a thin person with my qualifications. Or that I’ll be paid as well as a thin person. It’s also part of why medical professionals view fat people as non-compliant and deficient, since we are “willfully” avoiding thinness. Etcetera.

Does it matter to me what a random stranger thinks of fat people?  Individually, maybe not. But society’s view of fat people matters a great deal.

Things To Read

From Dani Kelley’s “The body I have”:

I stopped eating in the eighth grade.

People complimented me on how much weight I was losing, how much prettier I looked, how much better I was.

They didn’t know something was wrong until I started passing out. And when my eating disorder finally came to light, it was largely seen as me going through a phase to be popular or noticed, much like with my cutting and suicide attempts.

Because, you know, depression and suicide and self-harm and eating disorders are only a phase.

From The Nearsighted Owl comes remakes of diet ads  with fat-accepting messages:

Courtesy of The Nearsighted Owl

Courtesy of The Nearsighted Owl

And Closetpuritan has a thoughtful discussion of whether fat acceptance is a “denialist” movement.

Fat Acceptance proponents range from those who think that the link between fat and “obesity-related” diseases is overhyped and not looked at critically enough, to those who flat-out say that fat does not cause any diseases. (One problem with the latter statement is that just as correlation does not prove causation, it doesn’t disprove causation either; saying we don’t know for sure that fat causes* something does not mean that we know for sure it doesn’t cause something.)

You may guess from her parenthetical, and my including the parenthetical here, that I happen to agree that the link between fat and health is overhyped and not looked at critically enough.  I also think that links between fat and health are questionable at lower sizes of fat (which are most fat people).

I do probably face greater health risks than someone of “normal weight”.  

However: I do not think those risks make weight loss any easier or any more likely to last.  There’s no proof that maintaining weight loss improves health in general (unlike quitting smoking or starting to exercise).  And, finally, the pursuit of health is not an obligation we owe to the world for existing.

Update: Closetpuritan has posted another post on this topic, exploring “denialism” and “skepticism” regarding Fat Acceptance/Fat Liberation and HAES. 

Fat Demographics

I ran across some interesting US data from the CDC recently.

Obesity and Socioeconomic Status in Adults

It might add some illumination to the assumption that fat people are all poor.

Related:

What If You’re Too Big For Lane Bryant?

Ah, the eternal question.  What if you’re too big for plus size stores?   In the US, LB is one of the most common plus size stores, going up to a US size 28.  I’m too big for most of their clothes.

Today I’m going to not just talk about places I can buy clothes. I’m going for places that someone larger than I can buy clothes.  I’m going to skip the stores where I’m at the top of the size range and highlight ones that offer a few sizes larger than mine. I also welcome reviews and suggestions in the comments. 

In Myles Ahead sizes, I’m a 2 or 3x.  Their sizes go up to 5x.  They also have items in more conventional sizes up to 10X.  Mostly casual and dressy clothes, along with some accessories.

Plus Woman goes from 1X-10X, with fairly conventional sizing for most things.  At 4 or 5X, I’m in the middle of their range.  They’re located in North Carolina and make a LOT of things to order and so you can customize size, fabric, and colors quite a bit.  It can be more expensive.

I’m a 3x or 4x in Big on Batik clothes. Most of their clothing is available to 6x but some are 7X+,  including swimsuits.

And, of course, there’s Making It Big.  I’ve been buying their stuff for over a decade now.  There’s casual, dressy, activewear, swimwear, outerwear …. and none of it is cheap, but it’s consistent and much of it is American-made.   I’m a G/H (or 4X/5X) in their sizing, and they run up to size L (8X).   As I type this Wednesday night I’m wearing a pair of brown size H corduroy pants I got from MIB years ago with a red “simple tee” in size G; yesterday I wore size H black relaxed knit pants with a purple “perfect tee” in size H; Monday I wore the same brown cords with a top from, gasp, a different company.   No, they don’t pay me to advertise, and yes, I’ve paid for all my MIB stuff (some secondhand on eBay).  (And if they don’t come out with the cords again I may need to clone the ones I’m wearing, damn it.)

So there is it — the list of stores that I know carries at least 2 sizes larger than my size.  What have I missed?  Got any warnings or reviews?  Have at it.

Update: Ghastly G. Rotto reminds me through Twitter that Woman Within goes up to 7X in some things. I’m a 4X or 5X in their clothes, so Woman Within also fits the “2 sizes larger than I” rule even if they do use thin models.

FYI: Things to read & do

One of video links going around Facebook of Jennifer Livingston linked to The Fat Nutritionist site for more information on fat acceptance. Michelle is handling the sudden influx with her usual grace, but if you want to help her cope with the many comments (or, y’know, just have some busy threads to watch) you might want to head over. :)

Charlotte Cooper has a thoughtful post about the common experience of being criticized when being fat out-of-doors.

LoveLiveGrow has a nice FA 101 post. (I ran across it when I was looking to see if Stef still had the alt.support.big-folks FAQs online in one of my “yes I have proof fat acceptance predates the web” moments. ;)

Oh! In non-FA, the ebook of Feed  (Kindle Edition) is $1.99 for the month of October.  Feed is by Mira Grant aka Seanan McGuire and it’s the best political zombie thriller about bloggers I’ve read.  And I don’t even like zombies all that much! :)

Superfat Fears

I’ve written before that I can’t always count on finding clothing in local, physical stores in my size.

Last night’s dream?  I was hours from home and somehow didn’t have my pants.  I had bra, panties, and a top – but no bottoms.

And no stores had my size*.   In the dream I was in strip-mall hell and didn’t even see any clothing stores.  There was a Rite Aid, which had some basic tops and bottoms, but not in my size.   Target?   Fred Meyer? Ditto.

Eventually dream-me went into an alterations shop to ask if I could buy a few yards of fabric to make a sarong.  And then my car was stolen and … well, it was a dream.

Needless to say, this was a bit of a twist on the “no pants dream” trope.

*Depending on cut and the manufacturer, I wear between size 28 and 36.

The Fat Life Isn’t

Internet is part of life, but it’s not all of life.

The people I know offline aren’t surprised that I am married, employed, and co-own a house.  The emails I get from this site often assume these aren’t possible, or that I must be some sort of exception.  There’s also am assumption that my fat is the biggest problem I have.

No.  So no.  A world of no.

This is a blog about fat acceptance and demystifying fat.  I write about fat, but it’s not the biggest thing.

In February my father went into hospice and my husband nearly died from an infection.  My father did die, barely a month later.

My fat is much smaller than that.

I may start posting more about the non-fat parts of my life. Or not.  But no, me not posting as much here doesn’t mean I’m not fat anymore.  It can mean I’m preoccupied with estate stuff and new hire training and crunch mode and volunteering and and.

The disconnect may be that I announce my weight here. In real life people see it, but I don’t throw out the Big Scary Number.

PS leg lifts love me.   :)

Some Things To Read

The Fat Nutritionist has an excellent, and sadly useful, post titled “A little 101 - I get to exist.”

It is okay to be fat, because fat people already exist.

Fat people have existed for a very, very long time.

Even if all of us tried, not all of us would become permanently thin.

Fat people exist. We have existed. We will continue to exist. So to say that it’s not acceptable to be fat is to deny our right to exist.

Fat people exist.  Even if we want to become thin, it often doesn’t work. Which brings me to another thing to read: Medicare’s Search for Effective Obesity Treatments: Diets Are Not the Answer (PDF) by UCLA reviews 31 studies on diets and recommended that Medicare not cover diet programs because they are not effective enough to be worth Medicare coverage.  News articles summarized these findings here and here.  A quote:

Reviews of the scientific literature on dieting (e.g., Garner & Wooley, 1991; Jeffery et al., 2000; Perri & Fuller, 1995) generally draw two conclusions about diets. First, diets do lead to short-term weight loss. One summary of diet studies from the 1970s to the mid-1990s found that these weight loss programs consistently resulted in participants losing an average of 5%–10% of their weight (Perri & Fuller, 1995). Second, these losses are not maintained. As noted in one review, “It is only the rate of weight regain, not the fact of weight regain, that appears open to debate” (Garner & Wooley, 1991, p. 740).

Even the American NIH, which is not exactly a fat-accepting organization, admits that weight loss is often limited:

“How much weight does the patient expect to lose? What other benefits does he or she anticipate?” Obese individuals typically want to lose 2 to 3 times the 8 to 15 percent often observed and are disappointed when they do not.  (p22)

It is certainly possible have “a successful weight loss” of 5-10% and remain fat.

Getting individuals who are obese down to a normal weight isn’t realistic: Research shows that most people can’t expect to lose more than 10% of their body weight and, more important, to maintain the weight loss over time.

I am all for bodily autonomy. I am also in favor of recognizing reality.  That which doesn’t go away?  Is reality.  Fat people exist.  Fat people  aren’t going away.  Deal with this fact.

Fat People Die Sooner, Right?

Reading Michelle’s post on death (cached here if you can’t read it on her site)   got me thinking.

How else on earth could you explain a doctor expressing anger and blame at someone for accidentally dying? And to then vent that anger on his grieving wife? You couldn’t. There was no other explanation but the fear of death, utilizing the Just-world Hypothesis as its conduit.

Fortunately that didn’t happen to me when either parent died.  My mother, who died at age 74, reached the point with Parkinson’s and Lewy body dementia where she could no longer eat or drink.  My father died of a heart attack brought on by severe anemia related to bladder cancer.  He was 77.

My mother was fat for most of her life.  My father was thin for most of his.  Neither died due to a health problem for which fat or thin is a specific risk.  My father smoked for decades, which increases bladder cancer risk — but smoking isn’t the only risk factor.

Sometimes it’s not about fat.

A few related links:

Age is the number one risk factor for dying. My folks were born in the early 1930s. According to the US SSA (Figure 2a) my mother’s life expectancy at birth was  60 years — and my father’s was less.

My mother also struggled with diabetes and depression, both of which increase death risk.

Longer-lived parents tend to have longer-lived children. It’s like it’s genetic or something.

My fat eats cellphones

I lost my phone.  I thought  it was next to me on the couch.  Or maybe in the couch.  The couch doesn’t have separate cushions, but there is an opening in the fabric in the back near the support that my cell loves to dive for and it’s difficult to get out of…..  Anyway.  I couldn’t find my phone.

So the man of the house tried to call my phone.

Silence.

Tried again.  Still silence.

Had it fallen out of my pocket on the way home from work?  No, I’d texted a friend earlier.   I stood up to move the couch and … my phone falls off my lap to the floor. We hadn’t heard it because it was insulated between my corduroy-covered belly and thigh.

(Yes, we laughed.)

Today’s Google Doodle

Today’s Google Doodle is on Albert Szent-Györgyi, who is credited with discovering vitamin C.

Growing up, I wished that one could just take pills instead of having to decide what to eat and thus avoid all the questions and pressures around “eating right”.

I don’t wish that anymore.

But I’m glad for beef jerky and dried fruit when I’m dealing with hospitals and insurance and coworkers and deadlines and and and.

US Obesity Rates Level Off Again?

Oh, not again.  Still.  They’ve been level for years, but this time the Journal of the American Medical Association noticed. There’s discussion as to why, such as “people are getting healthier”.  Given how dieters often gain weight in the long term, I thought this perspective a bit more realistic:

Dr. Ludwig said the plateau might just suggest that “we’ve reached a biological limit” to how obese people could get. When people eat more, he said, at first they gain weight; then a growing share of the calories go “into maintaining and moving around that excess tissue,” he continued, so that “a population doesn’t keep getting heavier and heavier indefinitely.”

That’s not what my mother told me.  She was convinced that if I wasn’t actively dieting I would continue to gain weight for the rest of my life.  Yet when I finally quit dieting my weight … leveled off.  Huh.

Furthermore, Dr. Ludwig said, “it could be that most of the people who are genetically susceptible, or susceptible for psychological or behavioral reasons, have already become obese.”

Gee, y’think?

Twitter Party

There’s a bunch of fat folks tweeting about “things fat people are told” – in twitterspeak, #thingsfatpeoplearetold. (The # before makes it searchable.)   Some examples:

You have muscle?

But have you really, really TRIED to lose weight?

You’re too fat to do yoga properly, so don’t think you’re REALLY doing yoga.

Your allergies (that you’ve had all your life) would go away if you lost weight.

To read more, check out the #thingsfatpeoplearetold search results page.