a call to (fat) arms...
ok, all you amazing fat people out there, i want you to do something very important.
first thing tomorrow, get on the phone, ring 9903 0729, and tell the people at Monash uni that you want to take part in their telephone interviews researching people's experience of living with obesity. they have interviewed about 50 people so far and are looking to interview another 300, so spread the word and get all the fat people you know to do it too. they want people who are technically obese, male and female, and anything in between, who are over 18 and living in Victoria, Australia. feel free to forward this on or cut and paste any of it into your own blog if you want.
if you want more information before you call look at:
http://www.monash.edu.au/pubs/monmag/issue20-2007/opinion/opinion-weight.html
http://www.cems.monash.org/assets/docs/obesity-briefing-paper.pdf
or email weight.experience@med.monash.edu.au
the focus of the research is mainly on how fat people feel about the media and public health programs' portrayal of and approach to obesity, although there's lots of other stuff in there too. it's a significant study, and a chance to be heard in a forum which is likely to have a direct impact on public health policy in this country. kudos to scarlett_heartt and her blog Fat Lot Of Good for alerting me to this opportunity.
the reason i volunteered is because when i read their blurb on why they were doing the research i saw this sentence:
"The research will provide a rich source of data which recognizes and reflects on the deep poignancy of the experiences of people who live with obesity."
translated into normal language - we're going to collect horror stories so we can teach people to be nicer to the poor fatties while they're telling them to lose weight. now, it's not their fault, but this attitude displays some of the same stereotypical thinking that the study is setting out to combat. while i am well aware that there are many, many horror stories people have about being fat, (i have a few myself) and that it's important for those stories to be told. however, i also want to make damn sure that they have some balance in their data set, and get some stories from people who are not depressed and obsessive about their weight, who have a critical view on the 'obesity epidemic' hype, and are out there getting on with their lives regardless of their size.
i just got off the phone from doing my interview with them, and it was well worth the hour it took. i chatted to the researcher after the interview was finished, and she confessed that their original pilot study had consisted mainly of horror stories, and that while they had been anticipating more of the same, they were actually getting a more varied set of responses with the bigger study. this is a good thing, but i want to try and make sure that this gets heard about in as wide a range of social groups as possible, because it is vitally important that the study itself gets past the stereotypes it holds that all fat people are sad sacks who are miserable and depressed and obsessed with losing weight.
i'm glad i did the interview - i got to make a point that they might not have heard otherwise, which is that there are fat women who aren't just sitting around obsessing about their weight, but are busy getting on with living and loving and doing amazing things.
first thing tomorrow, get on the phone, ring 9903 0729, and tell the people at Monash uni that you want to take part in their telephone interviews researching people's experience of living with obesity. they have interviewed about 50 people so far and are looking to interview another 300, so spread the word and get all the fat people you know to do it too. they want people who are technically obese, male and female, and anything in between, who are over 18 and living in Victoria, Australia. feel free to forward this on or cut and paste any of it into your own blog if you want.
if you want more information before you call look at:
http://www.monash.edu.au/pubs/monmag/issue20-2007/opinion/opinion-weight.html
http://www.cems.monash.org/assets/docs/obesity-briefing-paper.pdf
or email weight.experience@med.monash.edu.au
the focus of the research is mainly on how fat people feel about the media and public health programs' portrayal of and approach to obesity, although there's lots of other stuff in there too. it's a significant study, and a chance to be heard in a forum which is likely to have a direct impact on public health policy in this country. kudos to scarlett_heartt and her blog Fat Lot Of Good for alerting me to this opportunity.
the reason i volunteered is because when i read their blurb on why they were doing the research i saw this sentence:
"The research will provide a rich source of data which recognizes and reflects on the deep poignancy of the experiences of people who live with obesity."
translated into normal language - we're going to collect horror stories so we can teach people to be nicer to the poor fatties while they're telling them to lose weight. now, it's not their fault, but this attitude displays some of the same stereotypical thinking that the study is setting out to combat. while i am well aware that there are many, many horror stories people have about being fat, (i have a few myself) and that it's important for those stories to be told. however, i also want to make damn sure that they have some balance in their data set, and get some stories from people who are not depressed and obsessive about their weight, who have a critical view on the 'obesity epidemic' hype, and are out there getting on with their lives regardless of their size.
i just got off the phone from doing my interview with them, and it was well worth the hour it took. i chatted to the researcher after the interview was finished, and she confessed that their original pilot study had consisted mainly of horror stories, and that while they had been anticipating more of the same, they were actually getting a more varied set of responses with the bigger study. this is a good thing, but i want to try and make sure that this gets heard about in as wide a range of social groups as possible, because it is vitally important that the study itself gets past the stereotypes it holds that all fat people are sad sacks who are miserable and depressed and obsessed with losing weight.
i'm glad i did the interview - i got to make a point that they might not have heard otherwise, which is that there are fat women who aren't just sitting around obsessing about their weight, but are busy getting on with living and loving and doing amazing things.