Frankly, it’s bad enough I have to look at ads to get to my email, but when they’re all diet related I kind of want to blow shit up.

So, one ad is a Nutrasystem (spelling/actual name??) meal plan ad. I love these anyway, because the lady is talking about how her husband loves her size 2 ass and below in light letters it says “Results not typical”. I just love that. Anyhow, the NEXT freaking ad is basically making fun on skinny women, particularly super models, and asking you to FORCE them to eat. I’m sitting there, watching a channel for WOMEN, that played back to back ads saying “You’re too FAT” no “You’re too skinny” and I realized your fucked either way. Sad.

So anyhow, screw you Oxygen Network!!

(And anyway I’m not even sure that fat alone is really a risk factor. Does liposuction cure diabetes instantly?)

Fillyjonk: thanks for taking the time to elaborate, you’re right, I did just mean awareness of the fact that diabetes can be causing irreversible damage before you notice any symptoms, rather than awareness of teh fat. I was pretty upset at being considered part of the problem, but I’ll try and be clearer and less insensitive in future.

I am at least lucky in having doctors who will calmly understand when I say I don’t want to be referred to their weight-loss clinic.

Yeah, Lillet, I remember that from my vegetarian days. It’s also a cousin to, “Oh, you’re trying to lose weight?” when I say I don’t want dessert. No, I just… don’t… want…. dessert.

Total other thing: If one more person in ,my office says, “BUT AVOCADOS ARE PURE FAT” I will kill them.

I will help! I’m not an avocado fan myself, but that is fucking absurd. WE NEED TO EAT FAT. I hope to hell vegans are all enjoying their avocados. I’m also incensed by the smear campaign against coconuts, btw. OMG SATURATED FAT! Yes, but not animal fat, and coconuts are actually really good for you… grrrrrr.

Also there is the whole “ohhhhh…. you can’t eat that” because I eat an entirely plant-based diet. No, I don’t WANT to eat it. I eat all the time and am very happy, and I’m totally happy eating what I want while you eat what you want. Please lay off.

Oh and w/r/t Spanx — when I was trying on my wedding dress: a bias cut slip number, all 3 salesladies were like “YOU ARE GOING TO NEED SPANX!” and I went without. I was just fine. The one time I did wear Spanx under a nude colored beaded Vivienne Tam number to the Carlysle, I felt like I had been given some kind of roofie.

Total other thing: If one more person in ,my office says, “BUT AVOCADOS ARE PURE FAT” I will kill them.

It’s great that there are ads out there telling people to get tested for diseases whose symptoms can be easily ignored — you’re gonna notice if you get late-onset type 1 diabetes, but type 2 can be insidious. So okay, that’s fine. But why make fatness the sole visual focus? Well, for the same reason we have to test kids’ BMI or make shows about putting fatties on forced marches… we’re just raising awareness, as though anyone was allowed to forget. I gather you just meant raising awareness about diabetes, not about that particular risk factor, but it’s a tired phrase in this particular context.

6. “I am so stout, I must wear stays to keep my stomach down.“

Unfortunately, that is precisely what occurs as a result of corset-wearing, though in a different sense from that intended by the woman herself. Corset-wearing does force the stomach down, but, more than this, keeps it down, dilatation of the stomach, chronic gastritis, and other digestive disorders resulting.

[snip interesting handwaving about how corsets actually make you fatter in the belly]

The fact of the case is that the average woman has no conception of the true meaning of tightness as applied to clothing. She has so accustomed herself to wearing uncomfortable clothing that her nerves have almost ceased to carry the sensations of pain and discomfort. Safe it is to say that the great majority of women endure, perhaps unconsciously, for sixteen hours a day such bodily discomfort as their husbands or brothers would not tolerate for sixteen minutes.

A woman who has for some time worn healthful clothing becomes painfully conscious of any tightness in bodice or skirt-band, thus showing that the nerves, if afforded an opportunity, would regain in time their power to carry sensations of pain or discomfort. And thus it should be, for it is the duty of the nerves to protect the interests of the body by giving prompt notice of any injury done to any of its parts.