 |
Did y’all see this?
Maybe you CAN blame being fat on your genes. But there’s a way to overcome that family history — just get three to four hours of moderate activity a day.
Seriously. Just exercise moderately for three to four hours a day, and you won’t be fat! LIKE MAGIC.
The best part is where they tell us that that’s really not as much as it seems, and offer the same old list of ideas that’s offered in every article exhorting us to just get twenty minutes of exercise a day, or half an hour, three times a week, or one hour, five days a week — whatever the hell the recommendation du jour is.
Instead of watching TV for a few hours at night, take a brisk walk, he suggested. Or use stairs instead of elevators, walk instead of driving, or take up a structured exercise such as swimming.
Or, you know, just park your car farther away from the mall! Like, 15 miles away!
Seriously, we’re supposed to walk briskly or take the stairs for three to four hours? I have walked briskly for three to four hours on occasion, but only on occasion, because it’s a fucking huge time investment. People are supposed to work at least eight or ten hours a day, then go home and say, “Hi, family, lovely to see you, off for my brisk walk now! You’ll be in bed when I get back, so see you in the morning!” And that’s without getting into the fact that a whole hell of a lot of people in the U.S. don’t live somewhere where they could take that long a walk if they wanted to — unless they just did hundreds of laps around their backyards or living rooms. Today, theoretically, I could walk over to the lakeshore path and take it downtown, then turn around and come home, and that would be just about four hours of brisk walking. But when I was growing up in the suburbs, my only path from home to anywhere involved highways and no sidewalks. Also, fuck if I’m going to take that walk every night of my life, throughout the Chicago winter and the Chicago summer, instead of actually spending time with Al and friends, unwinding from writing all day. And I love walking!
Fortunately, though, the article also offers another way to get your three to four hours a day: become Amish. The study of this particular genetic variant — thought to affect 30 percent of people of European descent (so I’m not sure if people of color are off the hook or expected to exercise even more) — focused on an Amish community in Pennsylvania, where the lack of cars and modern technology means folks are pretty active in their daily lives. In that context, people with the genetic variant in question often were getting three to four hours of moderate exercise every day, and they were no more likely to get fat than people without it.
Which… bully for them. There’s a lot to be said for that lifestyle. But most of us aren’t fucking living it.
Study co-author Dr. Soren Snitker of the University of Maryland acknowledged that it’s unrealistic to expect most people to shun modern conveniences and return to a 19th century lifestyle for the sake of staying trim.
Ya think?
Look, I’m a fan of movement. I don’t own a car and live in a pedestrian-friendly city. I have a flexible schedule and am not working multiple jobs. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to devote three to four hours of my day to exercise unless somebody starts paying me for it. The idea that I should be doing that — that 30 percent of white people should be doing that — solely to avoid being fat pisses me off like nothing has pissed me off in… I don’t know, at least 45 minutes or so. I cannot fucking believe that instead of writing the obvious story — i.e., “people who have this genetic variant would have to do a tremendous, totally unrealistic amount of daily exercise to be thin” — they went with “people who have this genetic variant can be thin if they just work in three to four hours of daily exercise — easy peasy!” Seriously, you guys! It’s not as bad as it sounds! Just break it down to 48 five-minute sessions throughout the day!
There was one thing that amused me about this article, right at the end:
Dr. Joel Hirschhorn, a genetics and obesity researcher at Children’s Hospital Boston, said people should not interpret the study to mean, “I don’t have this gene variant so I don’t need to be physically active.”
I love it. It’s the flipside of the inevitable, “People shouldn’t take this as a license to eat whatever they want!” that ends every fucking article suggesting that fatness is not a death sentence. What the hell is up with this assumption that everyone, fat or thin, reading articles about THE OBESITY CRISIS BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA is really just looking for permission to lie in bed all day or eat “forbidden” foods? Is that really the American dream? No movement at all and a steady diet of (baby-flavored) Krispy Kremes?
The thing that really pisses me off about this particular motif in TOCBBB articles is that it just reinforces the idea that exercise is onerous and eating veggies is gross, so the only reason any sane person would do either is to be thin. Which may have been how I felt when I was about 6 (not counting running around the backyard, tree-climbing, dance class, or swimming as exercise, of course, because those things were fun and even then I knew that Exercise Is Not Fun), but I eventually grew out of that mindset. I kinda think most people eventually do. And if they don’t, it’s probably because of the kabillion fucking articles propagating the notion that exercise and veggie-eating are miserable burdens one must undertake to avoid the dreaded sin of fatness. Way to promote “health” there, media.
Filed under: Exercise, Fat, Health at Every Size, Media, You've Got to Be Kidding Me
Wow. Not to mention how it might fuel some eating disorders. “But it’s ok to run for four hours a day! The article said so!” Arrrrrgh.
And may I just say that even if you do have a job that required movement - that’s not necessarily going to make a difference.
I work in archaeology and environmental assessments and that’s a pretty active job. There’s hiking, digging, lifting, screening and several times there’s a combination of these elements.
As a result I have strength and endurance but slim? Lost weight? Hah! hahahaha….. oh no, my body is immune.
People are supposed to work at least eight or ten hours a day, then go home and say, “Hi, family, lovely to see you, off for my brisk walk now! You’ll be in bed when I get back, so see you in the morning!”
Of course Kate. How dare we work and then come wanting to spend time with out families, pets, etc. and then actually want to eat and *gasp* watch TV! We should be burning in hell right now. I guess that’s where the demonically obese kicks in.
When fighting in the front lines on The War on Fat (where is that trademark symbol when you need it) our super-soldiers selectively forget that many people do have something called a life, and while physical activity is important (more for our muscles not getting atrophied than it is to look like David or Victoria Beckham), it shouldn’t encompass our whole lives. Also, our little obesity warriors forget that exercise should be fun, regardless of size. To them, exercise isn’t real exercise unless you’re cussing and crying and having a mental meltdown and about to collapse in a heap of exhaustion.
Why do these people publish this kind of stupid nonsense? Yeah, almost anyone will be sorta average size if they moved at medium to hi intensity 3-4 hrs a da, every day.
My grandparents lived like the Amish and they used to make their own flour in giant stone bowl with heavy giant pestles, all laundry by hand, make seasonal sauces and all kinds of food for winter storage. They did a lot of physical work to prepare food stuff for cooking and other work around their house. But my grandmother was just a tad plump, she was truly bigger boned as well, and grandpa was skinny as a needle. Even with the same active life style people don’t have the same body type. They were very happy when modern appliances came into their lives and they said they can’t believe they lived such physical lives. They still stayed pretty much the same size when they lessened their activity level. Size is relative and is determined a lot by genetics and you have to try xtra xtra hard to change this and who has the time to do this when they are healthy, happy, and fit but just not the media perfect size?
Jinx!! did you see this in the red eye this morning too? The guy whose shoulder I was reading over was probably afraid for his life.
The other issue that I face is, even though I live in a safer part of my city, an increase in robberies and other crimes makes it not so safe even here. And when it starts getting dark at 6 p.m., there will be no time to even take that “brisk evening walk.”
spinster, I’m right there with you. I have a 90lb dog, and I still don’t like to walk him after dark.
I’ve worked out that I can just about fit in the four hours exercise after work as long as I skip dinner and go to bed straight afterwards. Yeah, that sounds really healthy and realistic.
That’s freaking insane. If I work 8 hours, and sleep 8 hours, and exercise for 4, and commute for 1 hour a day, that leaves me 3 hours a day for eating, hygiene, errands, hobbies, relaxation, pet care, and little things like seeing my husband and remaining sane.
This reminds me of story I ready about Kate Hudson a few years ago. It was one of those really annoying stories about how X startlet had gotten her “pre-baby body” back in like 5 minutes…and the underlying message of course being, “why are you still carrying the baby weight, fatty?” Well when I read the article it turns out that Kate excercised for SIX HOURS EVERY DAY for months to get that body back. And that is the standard that your average person is supposed to be held to?? Grrr….
SANITY WATCHERS POINT WARNING:
That political cartoon slideshow to the right has some SERIOUS “fat jokes” in it!
It’s really effed up!
I’m pretty new to FA/SA (reading several blogs, going on maybe a month?) but when I saw this on my local news this morning, even MY head practically exploded.
I saw that yesterday and then my head exploded. And then I thought - oh no, Shapely Prose said it’s gonna be a slow week! I’m glad that you saw this and wrote about it. 3-4 hours is ludicrous! This article reminded me of some asshat comment I saw on an article that said that people who said that fat was in the genes were just looking for excuses. “Take a lesson from anorexics” the commenter said. Really? The most shocking thing was that he was serious. Anorexics can survive without eating (for a while) and if they can do it, so can you. And if you’re so insistent about eating, well that’s why you’ll never be thin (enough). It’s not your genes, it’s your lazy attitude.
I recently followed the doctor’s advice and started walking 30 minutes/day 3-4 days per week IN ADDITION to the “long walk” I do on Saturdays (minimum 5 miles, maximum 20 miles). Proud to report my progress to the doc, he said - oh no, you need 5 days, and AT LEAST 45 minutes per day. I was so angry!
As a single woman in Los Angeles, I commute to work, work a long day, go to the grocery store, mechanic, dry-cleaner, car wash, etc. All on my own. I also go to the butcher and the farmers’ market, cause you know, we have to make healthier choices than what can be found cheaply at the grocery store. And I cook because, you know, fast food will kill me. And I clean the house and maintain relationships and read books and take out the trash and volunteer for causes I believe in. I also try to get at least 6 hours of sleep every night.
I guess I really am too lazy to be thin.
Jinx!! did you see this in the red eye this morning too? The guy whose shoulder I was reading over was probably afraid for his life.
Ha! No, I missed it in the RedEye, but that image is hilarious. And jinx, indeed. GMTA.
The other issue that I face is, even though I live in a safer part of my city, an increase in robberies and other crimes makes it not so safe even here. And when it starts getting dark at 6 p.m., there will be no time to even take that “brisk evening walk.”
Excellent point. I can’t believe I left that out, especially since I live in a less than completely safe neighborhood mysefl.
I saw that yesterday and then my head exploded. And then I thought - oh no, Shapely Prose said it’s gonna be a slow week!
Heh. It is, but this one made me so furious, I couldn’t resist. I write pretty quickly when my head’s exploding, oddly enough.
Now I need to quit reading comments and get back to editing.
“Take a lesson from anorexics” the commenter said.
OMFG.
And then there’s those of us who DO that level of activity (I did 6 months of field work last year which equated to hiking with 30 lbs of equipment on for 8 hours a day whilst marathon training in my spare time) and still manage to never dip below a size 12. So really, there’s no guarantee that working your ass off will actually result in loss of ass. True story.
Golly,spinsterwitch, you just don’t have the right commitment. Dhange that brisk walk through your dangerous neighborhood to a daily fear-fueled 3-hour run, and mercy, you’ll be slim and acceptable in no time.
Yeah, those days when I get home at 7 p.m. exhausted and hungry, what I need is not to cook something vaguely decent to eat and relax with a good book or movie, it is to get back out there and have a four-hour workout. Guh. How reasonable. Do I get to eat a carrot stick first?
3-4 hours per day? That’s a part time job. Hell, that’s MORE than a part-time job if you’re supposed to do that seven days a week. Sorry, I’m not taking on another job unless I have to to pay rent. What about those people who are already working a second job? Sorry fatties, no sleep for you. (Oh, but if you don’t get enough sleep, you’re going to gain weight. Bad fatty. Bad!)
And even then… it’s not a guarantee. I did an archeological field school a couple summers ago for my undergrad. We were in the field by seven AM, walking through corn fields looking for artifacts, digging in hard clay and screening that hard clay. We left around 3 or 4 everyday. That’s 8 hours of hard physical labor in 85-100 degree heat. I got stronger, but my pants size didn’t change.
Oh, Kate, how I love to read your righteous indignation. It’s like you’re saying everything I’m thinking — only better than I could ever, ever say it.
Around here it gets dark in winter around 4pm. We are constantly (well, it feels like it) being told that being a woman out alone at night is ‘asking for it’, etc. etc. There isn’t anywhere safe and fun and interesting to walk and walking in the dark isn’t that much fun, anyway. So take your pick.
I’ve recently seen a scare story about not sleeping enough (8 hours a night) OMG KILLS YOU SOONER. So if we factor in 8 hours at work + 2 hours commuting (many people do a lot more) + 4 hours walk + 8 hours sleep, that makes 24 hours of stuff, before you even get onto the other stuff you need to do (which women living with a partner still tend to do way more than half of): Cook, eat, shower, makeup (GOD FORBID YOU GO OUT WITHOUT MAKEUP ON!), wash your clothes, shop (for essentials, even before you factor in crucial shopping-for-the-latest-look-because-you-can’t-be-out-of-fashion) and watch that special watercooler-discussion-topic TV show. Yeah, I can do that in 2 hours a day.
Grrr. I put in 10-15 hours of high intensity exercise a week, for several reasons having to do with an upcoming black belt test, and nice effects on my various blood tests for metabolic freakiness. I’m a SAHM with a flexible schedule, yet this level of exercise puts a serious dent in my free time and ability to get things done. And it’s not enough? Seriously? Because I haven’t lost any notable weight in the last year I’ve been working out this way. Still a size 16-18 too.
My fat ass is longing to use all this hard-won muscle to kick somebody’s butt over this one. More exercise my foot!
Damn, that should have said *22* hours of stuff! It was a typo, not my maths, honest!
I read this stupid article this morning, and I had flashbacks of me, from age 14 to 20, when I had a scary exercise addiction wherein I exercised 4 to 6 hours EVERY DAY.
That 4 to 6 hours a day of exercise left me little to no time for schoolwork, friends, socializing, family life, you know, normal things for teenagers. I would get up at 4:00 a.m. exercise for 2 hours. Go to school, get home around 3:00ish, exercise for 2 hours. Eat dinner, do a little homework, and exercise for 2 more hours until I pretty much collapsed until 4:00 a.m. the next day, got up, and did it all over again.
4 hours. 4 hours per day just so you won’t be fat. Because, you know, it’s worse to be fat than anything else in the whole wide world. To the extent that you should have no life to make sure that you’re not one of those lazy fatties, and if you’re not willing to do 4 hours of exercise per day, you must be a lazy fattie because we all know that fat folks are super lazy and spend all day eating bon bons anyways. None of us eat healthy or exercise ever. Nope. Not a one of us!
I wish there were a sarcasm font, I really do.
This made my head explode, and I’m still cleaning up my computer monitor.
You know, I was actually putting some thought into what I wanted to dress as for Halloween, because I love costumes, and scary stories, therefore it’s pretty much one of the best celebrations ever invented and generally what I’m going to disguise myself as requires some thought.
But thanks to the media, I realize I had the ultimate terrifying visage right on my face in the mirror, every single day! I’ll attend any parties or trick-or-treating as the Scariest Thing Known To Man ™: a fat person.
I find this horse shit infuriating. It just screams, “Hey, we don’t really care if your body is naturally designed to be this way or that way, you should really be doing Whatever It Takes To Make Your Body Thin And Socially Acceptable.” If I’m spending four fucking hours exercising every goddamned day, I have no time to enjoy all the supposed benefits of being thin. Fuck that noise.
If those advocating that I exercise four or more hours a day are willing to pay me my going rate for the time, I’d be more than happy exercise for a living. Somehow, I can’t see that happening.
The article is kind of shady science if you ask me. The Amish community doesn’t really go outside itself for marriage, so the genes are probably passed on and never diluted. The genetic make up of an Amish person is probably a LOT different than any American who doesn’t live in such a closed community. Seems like shoddy science to apply something from that community to Americans at large.
I’d rather be fat than live Amishly.
… reinforces the idea that exercise is onerous and eating veggies is gross, so the only reason any sane person would do either is to be thin.
Yes. I have another beef with it, too: we’re advised not just to exercise, but do so in unproductive ways. And this is exactly what I despise about what’s considered ‘exercise’ — it accomplishes nothing outside of itself. By implication, the ideal we are to aspire to is not just slim, but self-centered, even selfish; we’re being encouraged to look into the mirror — or into the mirror of men’s eyes — and never out into the world.
OMG Eucritta WORD!!! The Amish people do a lot of hard work, that keeps them slim, but also CONTRIBUTES PRODUCTIVELY TO THEIR LIVES!
And here they are telling us that we should be running like mice in a wheel just so we are socially acceptable. That we should set aside 4 hours of our day and spend them expending energy simply for the sake of expending energy.
It’s just so wasteful!
(If I could ride a bike for 4 hours and power my house for a day, I might think about it. )
The guy whose shoulder I was reading over was probably afraid for his life.
Ha! I do that, too. I have a snotty personal rule that I only get the Redeye if Kate Harding is on the cover.
The sad thing about this article is that six years ago, when I was a size 8, eating 18 Winning Points (TM) a day (somewhere between 800-1000 calories, for reference), and going to the gym up to two hours a day, I would have read the three-four hour recommendation and thought anybody who claimed it was impossible was JUST NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH. Four years ago, when I started to gain the weight back (because if daily living is hard enough on 800 calories and two hours of exercise a day, try maintaining that while going to law school) but before I came to Jesus, er, I mean, FA, I would have read that article and berated myself for JUST NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH. Just not trying hard enough to exercise three to four hours a day while studying hard enough to be in the top 10% of my class.
But I guess per the folks making this recommendation, all other achievements fail if are fat while we achieve them.
Aside from professional athletes, who on earth has time to exercise 3-4 hours a day?
I wonder if the editor decided the fatty cartoon illustrations were less offensive than the headless fatties. Or were they just out of headless fatty pictures this time?
What I want to know is…are the Amish who are maintaining their thinness through all of this exercise healthier than they would be if they did not do all this physical activity?
Please, study authors, please show me evidence that their thinness is actually helping them be anything other than just, well, thin.
“But I guess per the folks making this recommendation, all other achievements fail if are fat while we achieve them.”
I think it’s worse than that, OTM. Fat people are just LYING about those other achievements. It’s not that they fail, it’s that they don’t exist. After all, how could you achieve anything when you spend all day on the sofa stuffing donuts into your mouth?
Also? I know somebody who does actually exercise three to four hours a day. She is a competitive body builder. She worked as an admin for a living, and her only hobby, activity, source of social interaction, and interest was… body building. Her life was so focused around this one endeavor because pursuing it, which required the amount of exercise that this article suggests, took ALL OF HER FREE TIME. Well, exercise and making tons of tiny little high protein low fat meals. It also took all of her extra money. She was a nice lady, and I watched her compete a couple times and she was definitely good at what she did, but that was all she did.
It seems like such a boring life to me.
(And also, for the record, I didn’t maintain my top 10% status - it was too much work! Sometimes I wonder if I had been eating a more personally appropriate amount of food I would have been able to keep up that level of studying, but I try not to think about it too much because it makes me sad.)
Agreeing with everything everyone above has said. But I just had a more sinister realization about this crap.
One of the problems with the diet ethos is that one is never slim enough. Got down from a size 32 to a size 26? You’re not small enough! Keep going! Lost that sacred health-granting 10% of your body weight? Not enough! Keep going! The ultimate goal being to make our bodies, especially our female bodies, disappear.
This article aims us in the same direction. If you’re exercising for three or four hours a day, essentially using up all of your free time, what will you not be doing with that time? You won’t be going to movies, or the mall. You won’t be hanging out in parks, or listening to music in a club. You won’t, in essence, be taking up space in public. You might dash by the club during your four hour power walk, but you won’t be present, or visible, in a real way, living your life as part of a community.
No, you will have, instead, disappeared.
Doesn’t it always come around to this? That the only way we can please a fat phobic society is to eliminate ourselves?
I just want to point out that at some office buildings taking the stairs is NOT AN OPTION, not even if I wanted to. My building has the stairwells sealed off, for fire escape use only. Even people going to the second floor have to take the elevator.
And on a lighter note, I’m tickled that so many of us are or were archaeologists. What’s up with that? Probably that we’re just THAT cool. :-)
Wow. You know, the one time I was even close to thin, I actually WAS exercising 3-4 hours a day.
(I had been really cruelly dumped and was venting by running and running and running and mentally saying, “Fuck you, [ex-boyfriend's two-syllable last name]” over and over and over and over again for 10K or more.)
I just remembered posting on Fatty McBlog and being told when I said that staying slim took me starving and eight to twelve hours of exercise a day (based on my experience in college, the only time in my life I have ever been slim), I was told by numerous concern tolls that I was lying, delusional, or doing it wrong. I feel vindicated, but doubt any of them would change their minds.
O.C.: WORD! We also won’t be running for public office, we won’t be volunteering for causes we believe in, we sure as hell won’t be raising children, we won’t be shaking up the status quo in ANY WAY. Disappeared, indeed.
Hmm..I live in Amish country and believe it or not…there are fat Amish.
They must really be Mennonites….
Wow. Just..wow.
I’m not sure I have words to express my rage. RAGE.
This makes me want to turn into a giant fat woman, rampaging Godzilla-like through a city full of asshats who believe all of the bad stereotypes about fat people. And even that’s not enough.
I looked…and, no, the study was only looking at the relationship between their activity and BMI, not on any other (cough**real**cough) measure of health.
http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/168/16/1791
Wordy McWord, y’all.
Amish people do all that physical labor because they’re fucking Amish. It’s integrated into their days because it takes hours of work to produce a meal that we could make in a much shorter amount of time using things like electricity.
I guess this answers the study that came out a few weeks ago that “proved” modest exercise wasn’t enough?
I love the complete ignoring of things like working 8-10 hours (plus commuting), taking care of families, other hobbies, sleep and safety.
And as someone said, this never ends. You want to lose all that weight, you can never stop that 4 hours a day. Because as soon as you stop (and probably earlier - this study doesn’t account for taking up this lifestyle as a habit and whether it would actually work for us non-Amish fatties to start exercising 4 hours a day, if the results would be the same) you’d start gaining. So you could never, ever stop working out that much, and would probably have to start doing even more just to maintain the weight loss, etc.
Rar. *fist of rage*
DRST
Why is it that I always feel like I’m providing footnotes for these jokers?
Viv: rofl!!!
It’s just so wasteful!
Damn, yes. It also effectively devalues our lives, work and community, by the simple expedient of ignoring them.
And O.C.? Another archaeologist here! My particular speciality was faunal analysis, though, so I mostly did lab work.
I once saw Subway’s (yuck) Jared on a local morning show several years ago and they asked him how he managed to keep the weight off. He said he spent 4-5 hours in the gym every day. See, people who are paid to exercise can get 4-5 hours of exercise a day. Those of us, who, ya know, have to work a 9 to 5 or longer, don’t have 4-5 hours to exercise when 10 hours are taken up with making a living and commuting to make a living.
@ zen:
i’ve longed fantasized about being big as godzilla!
and….W-O-R-D! 3-4 hours a day? that’s a big ass chunk of time!
@ DRST: “I love the complete ignoring of things like working 8-10 hours (plus commuting), taking care of families, other hobbies, sleep and safety……”
um….but isn’t being THIN supposed to make US happier than the rest of these things, ‘cos NOTHING compares to being THIN!
*rolling eyes*
Diosa: It would be really fun, I think, to rampage and smash stuff up. :D
…You know, that would probably be a great idea for a stress-relief center. A room with foam/pillow/squishy buildings all arranged and stood up like a city, with things to throw and smash and knock over.
Hmm!
If I had the time to spend 3-4 hours a day hiking in the mountains (and lived where it was possible), I would sure as hell do it, and I’m sure it would reduce my waistline a little (though probably not “enough” for the Fat Police because I haven’t been below a size 12 in about 6 years no matter how much I exercised). But newsflash: that doesn’t fit into my daily schedule. I’m lucky if I have a free day on the weekend to pursue such luxurious activities.
I’m with kate217: when someone’s willing to pay me to exercise, as so many actresses and actors are who serve as the standard we’re all expected to hold ourselves to, then sure, I’ll consider taking the job. But to do it just because society is sick of looking at my fat ass? To disregard all the negative impacts 3-4 hours of daily exercise would have on my life because other people want to look at a thin me? Um, no. I have better things to do.
Three to four hours? Lemme tell you a story about a fat person who did get 4+ hours of exercise every day.
After I graduated from high school, I commuted to college. Parking passes were ridiculously expensive, but if you were willing to walk 10-15 minutes, there was plenty of safe parking on the street, so that’s where I parked. There weren’t a whole lot of elevators at school, and the few there were were ancient and out of order a lot of the time anyway, so I hardly ever used them. The campus was pretty good sized, so getting from one class to the next required a lot of walking and stair climbing.
Then after
cardioschool, I went toweight trainingmy job at a cabinet shop. Building and installing cabinets is an incredibly physical job, y’all. There’s tons of lifting, carrying, pulling and pushing heavy stuff over and over and over, and you have to do it all standing up.I did this for almost a year. Yes, I did lose weight, but it was only about 15 pounds or one dress size– enough to take me from “fat” to “slightly less fat”.
“… it just reinforces the idea that exercise is onerous and eating veggies is gross, so the only reason any sane person would do either is to be thin. Which may have been how I felt when I was about 6 (not counting running around the backyard, tree-climbing, dance class, or swimming as exercise, of course, because those things were fun and even then I knew that Exercise Is Not Fun), but I eventually grew out of that mindset.”
So here’s what I want:
I want an indoor/outdoor park with FUN physical activities for everyone, but especially grown ups. Rock climbing walls, gigantic adult sized bouncy castles, trampolines, indoor hang-gliding, no-booze, no- @$$hole dance areas, like Kate posted about, a whitewater “ride” like they have at amusement parks, but with kayaks; ziplines, the works.
Anything and everything that is fun and gets you moving.
You know, it’s a really awesome and wonderful thing that that article isn’t completely ignoring the folks who don’t have the option of walking everywhere for several hours a day. It would really be ignorant of them to assume that everyone is just as able-bodied as they are. Good thing they’re totally not doing that, right?
I’ve seen chubby Amish people, and downright fat Amish people.
So clearly “the Amish Solution” isn’t going to be enough.
We need to move right to the !Kung Solution. Because nomadic peoples never get fat. So folks, quit your job and start doing that subsistence gathering. You’ll be slim and trim in no time!
Sure, you’ll be eating grubs, and your life expectancy will be 50, but YOU’LL BE THIN!
Yeah, Lindsay, I didn’t even get into the ableism, but that is important to point out, since fat people with invisible disabilities are still seen as Garden Variety Fatties who should be working out 3-4 hours a day — and fat people with visible disabilities are often seen as having become disabled because of the fat. Grrrr.
I have a day off and so I was laying in bed listening to the alarm (radio). They reported as part of the news. I remember thinking it was absurd. Due to their comments, the morning hosts on XRT seemed to agree with me. But I was not completely awake so I may have imagined this part.
It is true that when I was in college (which entailed walking around a medium-sized campus with textbooks in my backpack) and working 4 hrs/day in a day care center (playing soccer against 8 4-yr-olds and winning & carrying kids & toys, yes, but also *sitting* and reading to the kids) I was in much better shape. Or at least I could walk further & faster.
I also weighed just a bit under 300lbs.
So, does that mean that 3-4 hours of moderate activity wasn’t enough?
Maybe I should buy stock in horses and buggies…because I can see people just *flocking* to trot everywhere and milk cows and shovel horse shit and…
Wait? That’s not true?
*snort*
I have some distant Amish heritage (though considering no one in my family is small, it’s no wonder we got thrown out!). But that lifestyle isn’t practical for everyone who’s, you know, not Amish, nor should it be. Guess what- safety pins were invented and so were hair dryers and we’ll have to deal with that. But that doesn’t make other people less healthy because they have more fat cells.
This is rather off-topic, but bear with me: THere was a comment on the thread about “maybe if I could power my house by using a stationary bike it would at least not be wasted energy” and it made me remember….I think it would REALLY be G*R*E*A*T (in terms of not using fossil fuel, not in terms of fat ness or unfatness) if I could power my computer using a stationary bike. Then the whole 2+ hours I generally spend reading blogs like this one heh, I would be powering my computer (or TV!) with my own caloric food energy and not coal or gas or nukes. Judging from how much arm-energy it takes to power my hurricane radio, I would only have to leasurely trotate my legs slowly to power the computer or TV…..why has this not been invented yet? It I invent it, would anyone be interested or is it just me? HAS it already BEEN invented? Has anyone ever seen anything like this (other than arm cranked hurricane radios)? If they made hand-cranked computer that wouldn’t be any good really because you need your hands to scroll and type.
Sure, you’ll be eating grubs, and your life expectancy will be 50, but YOU’LL BE THIN!
When you write this diet book you’ll be RICH! RICH beyond the dreams of avarice!!
BWAHAHAHA!
So, people with this gene variant are “no more likely” to be fat than those without it, if they exercise 3 to 4 hours per day…but that doesn’t tell us how likely they STILL are to be fat. There are fat Amish, for instance. And fat athletes.
So we are to exercise 4 hours a day on the off chance that we DO have this variant AND there are no other factors (genetic or otherwise) involved? Where do I sign up?
Oh, yeah, I forgot. I already did sign up. I was one of those people who went from a 26 to an 18 by virtue of AT LEAST four hours of exercise a day, but I was never able to get any smaller than that. And honestly, I would love to be able to be half as active now, but I can’t because of the INJURIES I sustained doing all that exercise.
Have no life, risk damaging your body through over use, and maybe–just maybe–get a socially acceptable body? Wow, what a deal.
KMTBERRY, over the years I’ve run into a number of websites with instructions on DIY pedal generators to power various appliances — I expect a Google search would turn up a few at least. I don’t know that you could reasonably power a desktop, though, they use a lot of power. A laptop might be do-able.
Um… I am a part time student, work three(!) part time jobs, and do not live in what I consider a safe neighborhood.
3-4 hours a DAY? Just thinking about trying to fit that in is such an overwhelming feeling… How about four hours per week? That’s about the best I can do.
(but of course that’s going to sound lazy- how dare I work so much to pay my bills when I should be exercizing)
I love the complete ignoring of things like working 8-10 hours (plus commuting), taking care of families, other hobbies, sleep and safety.
DRST- Obviously fatties have plenty of time to exercise because they DON’T have families (no one would marry a fattie or get her pregnant! DUH) or any hobbies besides stuffing their faces full of baby donuts.
Only thin people have the privilege of leisure time, silly.
You silly.
You know, the more I think about it, the more levels of bullshit there are to this. Seems to me, the mountain of priviledge on which the recommendations in this article are based is high enough for the air to be thin.
Really good point up there about the ableism. The funny thing is, this kind of shit is such constant background radiation, I tend to tune it out even though I am disabled. And right now? It’s either that or cry, I think. I’m due for a media vacation.
You know, it’s funny — I probably do get pretty close to 3-4 hours a day of exercise. I work at home, and most of my social life/fun stuff is on the computer, so… you know, I’m at my desk ten or twelve hours a day. I don’t do well with prolonged periods of inactivity — I have arthritis and fibromyalgia — so to break that up I do 45-60 minutes of Tae-Bo every day, take multiple jump-rope breaks of 10-15 minutes each, spend an hour or so in the garden, and go on walks to park trips with my kid.
And? I’m not anywhere near thin, even though I do all that exercise and eat pretty well (i.e., mostly vegetables, some whole grains, occasional meat, and very infrequent junk food). So this whole 3-4 hours a day thing is bunk, at least for me — and I can’t even imagine how it would break down for someone who works a brick-and-mortar job, has a household to maintain, and, say, likes steak-and-potatoes more than carrots-and-tomatoes. (Gasp! Fat people are allowed to eat according to their preferences, and exercise as their needs and schedules permit! Shock!)
In sum, I hate this article.
I’ve been adding exercise to my life. I’ve cut back the last two weeks. I was too exhausted doing an hour a day and now I’m averaging 45 minutes a day. 3 to 4 hours. I’m a housewife. I could probably find the time, but I don’t have the energy. It would take time to work up to exercising that many hours a day. Talk about burn out.
I had a job stocking shelves and unloading the trucks at Walmart - 8 to 10 hours a day on my feet working. I was thin when I worked there. I’m thin, now. However, there were heavy people working there, working as hard as I was.
So, people with this gene variant are “no more likely” to be fat than those without it, if they exercise 3 to 4 hours per day…but that doesn’t tell us how likely they STILL are to be fat. There are fat Amish, for instance. And fat athletes.
True!
And they didn’t take sedentary people and get them jobs where they’re working on farms. They took people who already had active jobs.
So I guess what we all need is TIME MACHINES so we can go back in time and be more active before now?
Oh, I like zen’s idea about blocks to bash over.
Everyone else has eloquently put all the ideas I had on the subject, so “me too!”
Um, yeah. This is ridiculous. I’m an athlete competing at a pretty high level & I train about 4 hours a day. (Though, oh no, only SIX days a week! *gasp* Clearly not enough.) I can unequivocally say that calling it “not that much” is hi-freaking-larious. Balancing my training schedule w/ full-time college is exhausting–I do school & work out and Nothing. Else. At. All. And I’m not working a 40-50 hour a week job–I’m in class about 15 hours a week. (Plus studying & reading & papers, etc., but still.) On top of that, I don’t have kids or responsibilities along those lines, and my total commute is about an hour a day. It’s INSANE to suggest that someone with a LIFE can commit that much time to exercise, and frankly patronizing & obnoxious to suggest that they can or should just because they are (horror of horrors!) fat. Plus there are studies that have shown that fairly small amounts of fairly low-key exercise provide a lot of benefit–not in terms of WEIGHT, but in terms of HEALTH, which is, after all, what we’re going for, right? (*insert sarcastic face here*) ARG.
You know, worst case scenario? Where fat is a death sentence, and hours of exercise will certainly make you slim and guarantee you a long life? I would not want a longer life of days filled with grinding exercise. That’s no life! Let me die young –hell, let me die tomorrow — if it means I’ve lived a life with leisure time, and time to volunteer, and to go to the beach, and to eat my fill of dim sum, and occasionally to do nothing at all. That sounds like a perfectly acceptable tradeoff to me.
um, actually my main means of transportation (or getting from point a to point b if you prefer) is walking. I walk 3 to 4 hours a day, everyday. My apartment has no elevator, so I always take the stairs. When I do have a car, the spot for parking is a 10 minute walk away, so all groceries and other things must be carried that far and then up stairs. Two out of three of the places I work also have no elevators, I do a lot of walking up and down stairs there.
And I try to get to they gym 3 times a week on top of all that.
Oddly…. still fat.
And Amish people? I think they are awesome… but based on photos and such I’ve seen, I’m not buying that there are no overweight amish people. Maybe very toned amish people who are bigger in muscle, not fat- but since when did the media abandon BMIs as a measurement of being overweight or not?
The 3-4 hours per day is how the Biggest Loser contestants lose their weight rapidly and also how they gain it back when they leave the show — because no one, aside from athletes in training and the aforementioned Amish, exercises 3-4 hours per day. So I guess what the article is saying is that when people say eat less and exercise more, they mean eat less and exercise more than is normatively possible for most folks. But, hey, if you really, really want to be thin, you’ll do it, right?
“artemisrage” is me btw, (comment in moderation)
I’m considering moving my blog slowly over to wordpress and forgot I was logged in for wordpress. Sorry.
Oh, Kate, I was hoping you’d rip this one to shreds. Damn shame. The study had the makings of a really nice brick in the FA movement wall. Before they barfed all over it and called it news, that is.
I’m doing good to get in my hour a day/5x a week exercise, and I’m not willing to be Amish or some other such lifestyle that requires constant toil, so I’m just going to have work the Willendorf.
Arrrggggghhhh.
I actually managed to do the 3-4 hours of exercise thing several years ago. I had a job with odd hours; I’d often work, say, 5am - noon. My husband and friends would all be off at work/school when I got off work, so I’d walk. And walk. And walk. I had all the daylight I needed, and was lucky enough to live in a safe area with sidewalks.
You know, I loved it. I still miss those days, sometimes. I’d be a happier, healthier person if I could still spend so much time out there walking. But thinner? Unlikely. The only thing that has ever made me thin is severe calorie restriction. And, of course, that level of activity is NOT feasible for a Regular Adult Life. What kooky drugs are these people on?!
Just *headdesk*.
Over and over and over and over again…
Honestly, I’d love to live like the Amish. I love the process of making what I need from scratch– grinding wheat, spinning wool, whatever.
But in order to do that, you need the support of an entire community. The Amish are able to succeed because they have developed their community over decades. One family on their own? How the heck will you get the money to buy the farm, and the cattle, and the seeds and the equipment? Not to mention the knowledge of how to do all this in the first place.
Seriously, fat police. Set this up for me, and I’ll do it, and we’ll see how it goes. Just keep in mind that I’ll have to eat real butter, lard, and whole milk, cause I can’t jump in the car and buy touch-of-buttermilk fake butter substitute or watery blue milk.
Oh THAT’S my problem. I need to work out for 3 hours EVERY day, instead of just the 3 days a week I do now. *headdesk*
I would not want a longer life of days filled with grinding exercise.
Me neither. In fact, I’ve long been perplexed at the failure of the mainstream to recognize that, taken in aggregate, the health advice we’re given tends towards a miserable existence rather than a life worth living. I’m not at all inclined, myself, to devote myself to the maintenence of a set of individual physiological parameters, as though these numbers were gods. Even on my worst days, I have better occupations for my time and energy.
I did once bring this up with my former PCP, and she didn’t get it at all. That it was recommended for my *health* was supposed to trump everything else — including, it would seem, time, space, and reason, let alone reason for living.
cereselle, I’m with you.
Actually, if I were going to exercise 4 hours a day? I’d quit my job, sell the house, buy an RV, and follow Springsteen around. Walk around whatever town he was playing in for an hour or two, dance 2 or 3 hours at the show.
But something tells me this is NOT the best way to use the money in my retirement account.
I read a version of this article yesterday, where it discussed what gene they were talking about, and that people with this gene were likely to be about seven pounds heavier than people without it.
So apparently, those 3-4 hours of exercise a day to compensate for your bad genes? Those 3-4 hours are just enough to keep seven pounds off you.
Multiply as needed!
(disclaimer, I don’t have the article open, it may have been seven kg instead)
My girlfriend is a physician assistant, and works in a family clinic. We went to dinner the other night, and my girlfriend and her fat-phobic best friend started tearing into a patient of my girlfriend’s. The patient is a two-year-old child who is almost 50 pounds. Both parents are thin, and report that they feed the child whole grains, protein, veggies, fruit and sweets. The dinner conversation went like this:
My GF: I mean, what’s up with that? How am I supposed to believe that they aren’t overfeeding the kid?
Her BF: Oh my god. What the hell? (lots of laughter.) I think people really don’t know how fattening stuff is.
Me: If they don’t, they must be living on some other planet.
My GF: That poor kid.
Her BF: What are you going to do?
Me: What, you mean besides calling the parents liars?
My GF & her BF: What?
Me: You just called them liars.
My GF: I did not.
Me: Sounded to me like the diagnosis here is that the parents are over feeding the kid the grain, veggies, protein and sweets. Like, I dunno, maybe they are force-feeding him five blocks of Velveeta cheese every day.
My GF: (sighs)
Me: What? Are you telling me that there are no slim children who eat like horses?
her BF: Of course there are.
Me: But it’s not possible for a single human being to be fat, but eat abstemiously?
Her BF: Of course it’s possible, but, you know
ME: But in this case, the parents are lying.
Her BF: I think you know what I’m talking about. There are a trillion kids like this.
Me: Actually, there aren’t.
Her BF: You know what I’m talking about.
Me: Yes. Obesity is awful and we’ll solve it by calling fat people lying, lazy gluttons and fix them by making them lose weight. Even though 95 percent of people who diet gain back all of their weight and then some. That’s what your saying. That’s what medicine is saying.
The situation just dissolved into silence. Angry silence. I felt like the feminist from hell who exists to suck the joy out of everyone’s lives.
And I clocked myself this morning. My GF doesn’t help with any of the household chores. She irons and halfway does laundry, but I do everything else. It takes me four hours to run my dog, feed the animal, feed myself and bathe, make the bed, do dishes, finish halfway done laundry so some of our furniture is useful… Four hours. Then I go to work. After work, I go to meetings and serve nonprofits.
ANd when I used “your,” I meant “you’re.”
After I get home from work I only have 4 hours before I go to bed If i want to get 8 hrs of sleep. Which I usually do not get (but I need) because I have stuff to do. So my already sleep deprived self is supposed to add 4 hours of additional activity as well? When am I supposed to eat again…. because last time i checked food intake was required for exercise.
Javamama, let’s start up the Fattie Collective Farm. Think the concern trolls will fund us? Since they’re so concerned and all. :)
Cindy, that was a fucking brilliant conversation. Sad, and uncomfy, but yay for you!
cereselle & Javamama….if you start up the Fattie Collective Farm, I will come work at it. Goddamn FAT dirty hippies, woo hoo!
Serious WTF. I’m one of those people who do on average 2 hours of exercise per day - one hour before work, one hour after, or on odd occasion, I’ll bundle up 3 hours at once. That’s not because I’m trying to be thin - I do it because I love it and I’m fortunate to have a flexible workplace and can come in early/leave early to bypass traffic.
If this is somehow miraculously supposed to make me thin, I must’ve missed the memo, since I sure as hell ain’t thin. And naturally, I can only manage this since I’m a 20-something bludging off her parents (who cook my meals despite my assurances that I will do it myself, bless them) and have no spouse/significant other/children/pets to speak of.
“Take a lesson from anorexics”
*facepalm*
And to Cindy - I second what Tari said, fucking brilliant conversation.
DUDE. My father’s side of the family comes from old-order Mennonite stock - painted bumper Mennonites who are still doing old-fashioned farming labour.
I have a lot of stocky relatives: short and stocky, and very occasionally, very very fat.
On health outcomes, you’d have to really control for wealth: one thing about the Amish and old order communities that I know of is that they have money. Yes; there’s a lot of physical labour - but there’s also ample food and medical and dental care. And maybe most importantly, there are community supports in place if you’re not, uh, shunned. My own grandfather was new-fangled Mennonite - very very liberal - but his church’s small group helped care for him. I know that, in his case, extended his life.
So. Other variables in play. (Including a very dairy-fat and starch heavy diet! Not a lot of pasturized skim milk on the Amish farm.)
Cindy:
And if the parents just don’t know how fattening stuff is, why aren’t they fat too? Hmmm. What a conundrum, they magically know how fattening stuff is when they eat, but not when the toddler eats.
Kudos for you though, it takes courage to confront people you have serious relationships with. I hope that your girlfriend listens with love.
I saw this article earlier today and boggled. I have NO IDEA how I am supposed to fit 4 hours of additional exercise into my life…per DAY. I need to invent some sort of Harry Potter-esque time-turner-backer thing.
Because otherwise? Yeah; I’m not going to be able to add even that minimum of “3″ of that 3-4 hours into my already over-booked day.
Two jobs, recently started classes (which also ask for 4-6 hours of my life…but only per WEEK…still though), cleaning and cooking, swimming and dancing (which, I ENJOY so those obviously don’t count towards exercise), trying to sleep for at least 5 hours a night…I won’t detail it all out but already my days add up to lots of hours spent doing necessary things in between those few short hours here and there of snatched enjoyment. I refuse to add in mindless hours of grunt-exercise level activity in the futile hope that it might rid me of 7 pounds or so. IF I even posses that correlated gene at all….
Yes, it’s possible for some people to do 3 to 4 hours of exercise a day — I used to, back in my exercise-addicted, eating disordered days. Funny, it never got me below a size 24, even with barely eating. It also damaged my body permanently and severely in multiple ways. Also, I had no life, because I was exercising all the time. Yeah, I don’t recommend it. :-(
Cindy,
Congratulations. It is hard to speak up in that situation. *hugs* offered.
No, no. You’re supposed to take your family WITH you. That way, there’s no chance of your kids catching TEH OBESITY.
Unless, of course, you don’t set strict limits on that Halloween candy.
If we do the fat collective farm thing, I can be the lady with the spinning wheel. I can’t plow fields and stuff but I can make yarn all the live long day.
Cindy, I love that conversation. That must have been very hard for you, though. It put me in mind of the time I told my doctor that I DO eat healthy, I do eat chicken and salad and watch fat so WHY don’t I lose weight? And he said, Well, it all adds up. If you eat more salad with a lot of dressing and a lot of chicken on it, you’ll still be fat. Basically, calling me a liar and saying my body is a bunsen burner. no, he’s not my doctor any more.
I have a photo of a dear friend of mine, a lovely older woman who might weigh 80 pounds soaking wet, sitting at a table eating her buffet breakfast of sausage, bacon, eggs, potatoes, danish, and fruit. She can’t seem to keep weight on. I guess she’s a liar too.
Days like this, I want to hide under a rock.
Tari: Hey, we’ll be clean fat hippies. I like being covered in dirt, but I like washing it off even better. :)
Seriously, though, when did being entirely self-focused become a duty to your community? Why is the way we look community property?
((((((Cindy))))))
You are so wonderful. Thank you for speaking up so bravely!
Cindy, what an awful, wonderful conversation. And medical professionals wonder why so many of us are bitter and untrustful!
cindy *high fives you* Good for you for not being silent in that situation.
stacy I was thinking that too. Back right after I got diagnosed with hypoglycemia I moved back in with my parents, who live in a nice suburban area. I was walking several miles a day (to get out of the house away from my parents for a while) and I did lose some weight, but more importantly I felt better. I’d love to be able to have that kind of time again, to take nice long walks in the afternoon and not worry about pain in my knees from arthritis or my torn ligament, or pain in my feet from my heelspurs, or having to come back to the office and not be all sweaty and gross when I go teach or go to a meeting, etc.
I have been thinking of trying to walk to work a couple days a week, when the weather permits, at least to try it and see how my knee and feet hold up. It’s about half a mile at most, though all uphill going in. Not because I’m thinking it’ll make me thinner, but that I feel slightly embarrassed about driving in every day and wasting gas and carbon emissions when the walk is so short. But, well, see aforementioned “I don’t want to be the sweaty fat person standing up to lecture a class” issue. :\
DRST
What the hell is up with this assumption that everyone, fat or thin, reading articles about THE OBESITY CRISIS BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA is really just looking for permission to lie in bed all day or eat “forbidden” foods? Is that really the American dream? No movement at all and a steady diet of (baby-flavored) Krispy Kremes?
It is for the kind of people who write articles like this. You know, the ones who “have” to give up all their favorite foods and spend two hours a day in the gym in order to be thin enough to keep getting hired for plum media jobs, and pray that by the time they’re 40 it won’t be three hours a day. They think it would be GREAT to be “able” to relax on the couch with a box of donuts, night after night after night, and never “have to” exercise again because they’re sick of it and their knees are starting to hurt but they keep grinding away anyway. They probably literally DREAM about donuts, in fact, because that’s what happens when you’re no-carbing it. They have no idea what life is like for most people because, not caring about much besides furthering their own careers, they are shockingly incurious about other people other than in the circus-freak sense.
All this shit makes me miss the days when reporters drank and smoked and ate corned beef at their desks and never saw the inside of a gym. At least we were spared this kind of sanctimonious healthist garbage then.
Oh, and per Lindsay above, said incuriosity leads to heaping lumps of ablism. You mean there are people who CAN’T work out hard? You mean, like, EVER? Come on! Everyone knows that if you MAKE people exercise, all their health problems go away!
*All this shit makes me miss the days when reporters drank and smoked and ate corned beef at their desks and never saw the inside of a gym. At least we were spared this kind of sanctimonious healthist garbage then*
I work in a newsroom. A huge flock of newsroom folk vacate the office hourly to smoke. Look on the desk and you’ll see diet and regular sodas, bugles from the vending machine and chewable antacids.
We also have a Press Club. Which calls meetings to order at local bars. The president buys the first round.
We aren’t the model of health, but we are a lot of fun.
AndyJust *headdesk*.
Over and over and over and over again…
Do that for a good 3-4 hours per day and watch the pounds melt away.
Good grief. “Three to four hours” of exercise a day? Who the hell do they think will buy that?
I don’t GET three to four hours of “me time” in a given day (well, unless you count the six to seven hours I sleep, but I kind of need sleep. Is that going to be the next meme? BAD FAT PEOPLE SLEEP TOO MUCH! NEED TO GET OUT OF BED AND EXERCISE!) I’m damned if I’m going to spend all of it working out.
I DO exercise for an hour most days - because it makes me feel better and seems to boost my immune system (I rarely get sick). But telling me I need to do MORE just sucks all the fun out of it. It sucks all the feeling of accomplishment I have out of it.
Because for a long time I was like, “Go me! I can move for a whole hour at a time! I feel so great!” and now I’m supposed to be “I suck! I’m not getting enough exercise!”
Screw that. I am effing sick and tired of a media that tells us nothing we do is ever ever good enough.
Frankly I think the 3-4 hours a day I spend practicing music is a better way to spend my time. I get perfectly reasonable amounts of other exercise in, but practising a musical instrument for that long a day is mentally and physically demanding. People easily believe the mental aspects, but anyone who says it’s not physically demanding has probably never done anything more than play Guitar Hero. It’s not quite like cycling a 100km, more like yoga or Pilates, lots of concentrated (yet relaxed! Stay relaxed!!) muscle, posture and balance work.
Oh, still fat.
(The buttload of practice is why my blog’s been a bit dormant. I should post about that. Yikes.)
Fuck losing weight. Unless the state is going to pay for a breast reduction or a public pool near me or a magical cure for asthma, I can’t exercise. Oh, I’m such a bad fatty!
Fuck that noise. I ride my bike 30-45 minutes a day and spend my days walking around a campus that’s four square miles. It’s already a pain in the ass when I have to stop and puff on my inhaler, and it’s embarrassing to boot. People automatically assume that because I’m chubby I have asthma. I would like to introduce them to 12 year-old size 2 anoerxic me, eating 200-500 calories and exercising 4+ hours a day, who fainted from exhaustion after going up a flight of stairs and wound up in the hospital from malnutrition.
But according to the media, skinny me was healthy, and chubby me is not. Also, my asthma doesn’t exist. In fact, nobody has asthma. Or bad knees, or a bad back, or an inability to walk.
Is that