Just as intuitive eating seems to really clash with our cultural understandings, so much so as to be incomprehensible to most people, I find the idea that disease could possibly come from somewhere other than individual behavior to be so foreign to most people – it’s amazing we have any environmental justice at all.

It’s despicable, really – during the asbestos trials in Libby Montana (miners and their families dying of mesothelioma right and left), the company accused all of them of inducing lung cancer in themselves through smoking – that was the very first tactic they employed to discredit the people they sickened. It says something.

We are being sold a bit of goods, and the abysmal way fat people are treated is only part of the picture, unfortunately.

Anyway, I applaud SP for asking these questions and delving into these cultural patterns. Someone has to keep track of the horseshit we have to shovel out of our minds on a daily basis.

This process is difficult – Understanding helps! Many thanks!

“I don’t have to eat things just because I have a chance to or I have a notion to or nobody’s watching. Restriction makes you do that, not liberation.”

I was put on a very restrictive diet as a child by my well-intentioned (?) fat-phobic mother. I was always hungry and developed the habit of sneaking food, every chance I got. I am thin now, and have a healthy relationship with food (post-hospitalization for severe bulimia), but I still can’t hear the word “diet” without heading to the fridge.

Your analogy of eating to the Modesty Survey is flawed in one HUGE area — for conservative Christians, especially of the fundagelical variety, ~thinking~ about a no-no IS a sin. You are “charged” with committing that sin just as if you actually had ~done~ it. Ergo, thinking about having sex with that pretty girl you just ogled IS THE SAME THING as actually jumping her right then and there.

I forget the prooftext Bible verse, but fundagelical teens get lectured on it quite often. it was also in the very first Chick tract I ever saw, back in my pre-teens.

And thanks.

It also works the other way though. Now that I don’t see salad as something that I, as a fattie, should be eating, I’ve descovered that it’s one of my favorite foods and eat it all the time. The same goes for a lot of healthy foods that I enjoyed less when I was eating them because I was “supposed to” and I’m actually eating a lot less junk food than I was before, which is again why I refuse to feel guilty when I eat foods I “shouldn’t.”

Maybe I’ll send this to my mother…

Totally. I’ve also learned to look at, say, a painting, or beautiful vase, or earrings, and to be glad that it exists even if it’s not coming home with me. Sort of a “I really like you (even though I have no room / too many others / no money) and I’m so glad I got to see you, I hope you find a good home” feeling. I find that makes it a lot easier to walk away without purchase.