Fatshionista Goes Pro
How Childhood Obesity Fight Damages Self-Esteem
We can see in the comments how easily they transfigure an important point into a man of straw that is not saying anything more complex than "we should encourage kids to be fat!!!" I wonder how long, how often, and how strongly people have to hear a message that they have deliberately made themselves deaf to before it starts to reach them, just a little bit.
A longer version of Lesley's article is already on the Fatshionista blog, but I'm happy that she got this published where more people can see it. I've seen more than one news article covering as well intentioned groups go into high schools and target girls, active healthy girls, that are overweight according to the BMI (mind, some of my athlete boys in college counted as obese because it doesn't take into account muscles). They target these girls, put them on a strict diet and force them to exercise more than they already were doing in their sports. And they lose weight. Of course they do. But then they gain it back, plus more. The scientists call it a success, because who knows how much the kid would have gained if it hadn't been for their intervention. But what if they wouldn't have gained anything? What makes you think that they'll want to do this again, after you've shown them how drab healthy eating can be and how much of a chore exercise can be?* Way to fail.
There has to be a better way that doesn't stigmatize overweight kids or "overweight" kids even more than society already does. If you really believe in hate the sin and not the sinner, then try a little harder to actually do that.
*They made her be a vegetarian. Cold turkey. Vegetarianism is not a weight loss regime.
We can see in the comments how easily they transfigure an important point into a man of straw that is not saying anything more complex than "we should encourage kids to be fat!!!" I wonder how long, how often, and how strongly people have to hear a message that they have deliberately made themselves deaf to before it starts to reach them, just a little bit.
A longer version of Lesley's article is already on the Fatshionista blog, but I'm happy that she got this published where more people can see it. I've seen more than one news article covering as well intentioned groups go into high schools and target girls, active healthy girls, that are overweight according to the BMI (mind, some of my athlete boys in college counted as obese because it doesn't take into account muscles). They target these girls, put them on a strict diet and force them to exercise more than they already were doing in their sports. And they lose weight. Of course they do. But then they gain it back, plus more. The scientists call it a success, because who knows how much the kid would have gained if it hadn't been for their intervention. But what if they wouldn't have gained anything? What makes you think that they'll want to do this again, after you've shown them how drab healthy eating can be and how much of a chore exercise can be?* Way to fail.
There has to be a better way that doesn't stigmatize overweight kids or "overweight" kids even more than society already does. If you really believe in hate the sin and not the sinner, then try a little harder to actually do that.
*They made her be a vegetarian. Cold turkey. Vegetarianism is not a weight loss regime.