there was healthy food & exercise too, but learning not to diet made being a teenager so much easier than it might have been

I was horrified at the story of the woman who was “too fat to adopt”. I have PCOS. Because of this, I am short an ovary (it had to be removed three years ago because it was encased in a huge cyst), a fallopian tube, and a chunk of uterus (both removed along with the ovary three years ago).

A friend of mine also has PCOS, and somehow managed to beat the odds and conceive three times–and she REALLY wanted children. She has one daughter and had two miscarriages.

Because of the PCOS, she gained a lot of weight very quickly. She tried really hard to lose it, but, as you probably know, it’s next to impossible with insulin resistance to lose weight. I would guess that she is at least as large as the woman in the news story. Guess what? She’s a great mother, and her weight does not prevent her from giving her daughter a happy, healthy upbringing.

I am sure that Kylie Lannigan would not be refused IVF if she offered up her money to a fertility doctor. I suppose these fat-haters would prefer she put her body and feelings at risk with IVF than be permitted to adopt? Not only are the hormones and the rest of the process really hard on the body, but it’s awful to have failed attempts at IVF. Many women mourn every failure as a miscarriage (which it is). It’s also possible that she would end up with multiple viable fetuses and have to make the choice to terminate a few or try to carry too many babies to term. All of this, plus going broke trying to make a baby with your own genes–is it worth it, if there are adoptable children available, and you are willing to choose adoption over IVF?

She could give an EXISTING child a loving home, spending her monetary resources on clothing, toys, food, and other kid stuff, instead of blowing it on expensive, risky, and often unsuccessful medical procedures. I guess the adoption folks would rather advance their agenda of discrimination, though, than actually find loving homes for the children that need them.

For the record, I am incredibly fortunate that I have no desire to have children. My husband and I are both just not interested in them, and I got thoroughly burned out on childcare, being the oldest cousin on both sides of the family. Years of forced babysitting (without pay) was enough of raising kids for me! I’m also just not into hairless apes. I’m into scaly creatures, furry felines, and slimy sea life :)

Apricotmuffin, that would be AWESOME. :)

And I do want to write more about Type 2 diabetes, but I’m currently doing a lot of research, because it’s harder to find simple take-away points about diabetes than, say, heart disease. There’s just not much clear cut information about the risk factors (except that no, it’s not just a matter of stuffing your fat face), and I don’t have a science background, so I want to be careful about spreading misinformation — since fighting that is ostensibly one of the major purposes of this blog. But you’ll definitely see more on it here eventually.

I just wanted to pick up on your comment on type 2 diabetes and say that Im constantly afraid of the way the disease is viewed these days. As someone who is probably very likely to develop it later in life due to EXTREMELY strong genetic factors (even my marathon runner, couldnt be healthier uncle has it. Let alone my mother, her sister and my grandmother) Its important to me that people stop associating every single incident of type 2 diabetes with ‘people stuffing their stupid fat faces’ (or something along those lines).

I wonder if you would write in some more detail about it, if it interests you enough. I’d love to hear what you have to say.

You might have even inspired me to write my dissertation on the subject of fat discrimination and the media or somesuch. Thankyou :)

And man, I just sounded like a Broadsheet troll right there.

Which leads me to another pet peeve du jour: more than one article I’ve run across recently referring to Type 1 diabetes as “the inherited form,” as opposed to Type 2, which is caused by “environmental factors.”

Environmental factors play a larger role in Type 2, but per the goddamned American Diabetes Association, “Type 2 diabetes has a stronger genetic basis than type 1…”

Do fact-checkers exist anymore?