Random Rants from an Insane Butch Bunny

The lovely and talented Lesley over at Fatshionista, had a very interesting article up about WLS today.  Go over here for the full post, but I just wanted to draw attention to a particular point...

 

[D]espite the growing popularity of obesity surgery — and the general perception that it’s a shortcut to thinness and good health — it’s no easy path. The American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) in Gainesville, Florida, puts gastric-bypass surgery’s death rate at between 1 in 1,000 and 1 in 200. In one AHRQ study, 4 in 10 patients developed complications within the first six months, including vomiting, diarrhea, infections, hernias and respiratory failure. Up to 40 percent of gastric-bypass patients can suffer nutritional deficiency, potentially resulting in anemia and osteoporosis; seizures and paralysis have been reported in extreme cases. Some of these malnourished patients experience bizarre neurological problems, as Wells did. [Emphasis added]

Whoa whoa whoa, hold up there a minute, article! Between 1 in 1,000 and 1 in 200? Does that strike anyone else as being kind of a broad freaking range of potentialities? Is that not a pretty horrifying reminder, in fact, that the exact number of casualties from WLS is totally fucking unknown? And is it not likewise horrifying to realize that doctors nationwide are proffering WLS willy-nilly as a cure-all solution for their fat patients who suffer from basically any health condition, weight-related or not?

 
Hmmm... well, gosh, who would've thought that intentionally disrupting a fully functional part of the body could cause it to fuck up?

OH FUCK

Not to sound a little mean or anything, but...

Can someone tell me where I can get good quality eye-bleach to scour out all that I have seen? I'd submit this to PSD, but I don't now where they'd start!

I mean, I could write a whole long piece about the objectification and sexualising of children, and the photoshopping of childhood photos being something that might possibly tell little Suzie she isn't good enough even WITH hours of make-up and hair and careful lighting and posing and training and dieting. But...

I'm just mesmerised.

By those dead, lifeless, creepy little eyes.

When shit likethis is actually being seriously considered by our government?

One can't help but wonder how the value of a human life will be determined.  Will one's value be determined based on the contributions one has made under the NI taxes throughout one's lifetime?  Or the contributions one has made throughout a set period, such as the preceeding 10 years? 

If the first option, then the young, the very poor, people who have been homeless or disabled or otherwise unable to work and pay tax, will be hard hit.  The poor will intrinsically be given a lower value than the rich, having paid less tax overall, and will be denied healthcare that the rich enjoy without problems.

If the latter option, then the elderly and retired, or those who previously worked but have recently hit on hard times, will be the worst affected.  I find it highly unlikely that our "labour" government, so far removed fromt he values upon which the party was founded, will be happy to apply the same upper limit of monetary value to their own lives as to the lives of the general populace, so certainly some inequality will be "justified".

In our failing economy, work is harder to come by.  This is especially true for those who have until now had difficulty finding employment.  My OH was homeless for a few years in his late teens, and only escaped his circumstances when he moved in with me.  He has been looking, without success, for permanent employement of any sort for about 3 years now, and thus far we have simply doen the best we could with lots of temp employment through agencies.  That work is rapidly drying up, and we are already feeling the pinch.  Similarly disadvantaged people, and those worse off than ourselves, will be even less able to cope as work becomes ever harder to obtain.  Meaning overall that the poorer will find their "value" to the government and the NHS reduced even further.

Or would a "moral" basis be put into effect?  Will lifestyle be the clincher for such decisions?  Will smokers be denied cancer treatment?  Will those who drink, even in moderation, be allocated fewer funds for kidney or liver diseases?  Will the overweight be denied medical treatment for... everything... under the current trend to demonise fat as the cause of all ills, against all medical evidence?

How many of us would be that surprised to find exemption clauses included for government officials and NICE employees?

And if this comes into affect, will I be allowed the choice to stop paying NI contributions, saving the money for private medical insurance?  Somehow, I doubt it.

The British government are relying too much on the general complacency and apathy that has infected our populace.  So few of us bother to turn out to vote int he elections, and so few of us bother to speak up against injustice, that they fancy themselves accountable to no one.  It is time that we made it very clear to our leaders that the British people will not stand for this sort of nonsense.  Contact your MP, and his/her rivals in office, pledge your alleigance to the party that pledges to end the slow creep to the right of our government, and make it very clear what your views are, what your opinions are, and that you will vote int he next election, but AGAINST those who have made spin and money-grabbing their career.

How can we have so much money to pour into a failed business like Northern Rock, and the funds to provide massive, multi-course banquets at government talsk regarding the starving poor in third world countries, but cannot afford to treat our own populace?

Right

So.

Could someone who isn't incoherent with rage possibly explain to Sony why this isn't exactly a very sensible marketing strategy? Ans why the image might be considered just a teensy, tiny bit racist?

To be fair, they did pull the ad, and issues an "apology";

 We… recognize that people have a wide variety of perceptions about such imagery and we wish to apologise to those who perceived the advert differently to that intended. In future, we will apply greater sensitivity in our selection of campaign imagery, and will take due account of the increasingly global reach of such local adverts, and their potential impact in other countries.

 
What, I can't help but wonder, was the intended message that Sony had expected people to get from an ad showing an aggresive white model violently grabbing the face of a black model, with lots of overtones of dominance in the poses?

Anyone?

And while I'm at it, does anyone have the contact details for anyone in Sony's marketing department, or their customer relations department?

It can be difficult, being an FA activist when you work and socialise with a group of women that includes two WW dieters, one yo-yo "low fat and calorie reduction" dieter, one woman with an obsession for discussing the content of other people's meals and several people who are not dieting right now, but who see it as a positive thing, and two thin women who have never "needed" to diet in their lives or had to try it, yet still feel able to speak with authority on the matter.

Today, only five of us, including myself, were able to take lunch together.  M, our low-fat dieter, T and J, our WW dieters, and D; a wonderful woman in her sixties who has more sense than any of us put together and whose company I enjoy more than most.

During lunch the conversation turned, as it so often does, to dieting.  As usual, I prepared to spend lunch not talking, and mostly not listening, as these conversations have really been getting old of late.  To my surprise, M made a point of telling T and J not to get "too obsessed" with their diets or take it "too far".  I was able to take part in the conversation by warning them about the obsessive nature of my diets over the years, and noticed a look of slightly concerned recognition on their faces.  They didn't agree with me, and wanted to deny it, but they knew the horror stories I was telling personally.  I didn't get to say as much as I would have liked, which is probably a good thing as I tend to blather, and I would rather they hear my side of things in spits and spats than in some awful rant.  T and J, of course, proceeded to reassure us that they were not obsessed, that they certainly aren't going to become the sort of people that count every point and weight htemselves twice a day; the sort of people who think about nothing but food and always want it, and who starve themselves all day in preparation for a night in a restaurant, spending the whole day week prior telling everyone how excited they are to be about to go and eat barbeque ribs, or whatever.

And then M, who was most vocal and whom they seemed most concerned with convincing, got up to have a smoke.

And then D and I watched.

T: ... That salad was yummy. 
J:  Yeah, really nice.  It didn't even need cheese or meat or anything.
T:  Or bread.  Or dressing, either.
J:  Sometimes all you need is some lettuce and onion and peppers and tomato and cucumber just all on its own.
T:  Yeah.
...
T: ... I... kinda fancy something sweet now, though.
J:  I'll have something sweet if you do!  (Yay!  An excuse to be a naughty girlie!)
T:  Not sure if I should though...
J:  How many points was that salad worth?
T:  Oh god, I forgot to check.  Have you got your WW calculator with you?
J:  Yeah, of course.
T:  So what was it?  Lettuce, onion,
J:  Peppers...
T: Yeah peppers, tomato and cucumber.
J:  Did you have sweetcorn?
T:  No I didn't have that.
J:  Oh good, me neither.
T:  So, lettuce is worth 1 point.  Is that for a whole lettuce or for a serving?
J:  How big is a serving of lettuce?
T:  Let's say a point for that, then.  Peppers are 2 points per pepper.
J:  I'm going to assume I had half a pepper in my salad.  (Note; they had about a tablespoon of peppers each)
T:  Right so, add the onion and tomato, and just in case we got it wrong I'll add another point and that's... 6 points each for the salad.
J:  How many have you had so far today?
T:  Well I can have 20, I had 4 for breakfast, so I've got 10 left.  Plenty!
J:  Great!  Let's get some chocolate!
T:  Oh, actually, I don't know what I want for dinner.  Should I leave some points spare?
J:  Don't they have those sugar-free, fat-free reconstituted cereal bars?  Those are only a point each.
T:  Let's have one of those each, then!
J:  If we split one we could save points for a snack later as well.

And if you were bored out of your skull by halfway through that, you know exactly how I feel.  In case you were wondering, they never did buy their sweet treat.  They spent 10 minutes dithering up by the snack bar, carefully examining the wrappers of all the diet-branded snacks before finally deciding to "be good".

I was very good.  Not once did I grab them by the throat and yell JUST STOP!  JUST STOP DITHERING!  YOU'VE EATEN LESS CALORIES THAN THE W.H.O DAILY RECOMMENDATIONS EVERY DAY FOR THE LAST 3 MONTHS!  IF YOU WANT CHOCOLATE EAT IT!  IF YOU DON'T WANT IT, DON'T HAVE IT FOR THE SAKE OF IT AND JUST SHUT THE HELL UP!

So, yes.  Not obsessed in the slightest.

It's also a little unnerving to eat in front of people on WW and other diets.  T and J do this; they watch you.  They stare at your food.  On the plate, then they watc to see how much you load on the fork, and watch you put it in your mouth.  It's creepy.  D had bought herself a little chocolate bar, but wasn't hungry for it after all so just left it, wrapped, on the table in front of her.  And they kept on looking at it.  All the time, and if anyone dares buy a dessert, they go on and on about how "unfair" it is to eat something "nice" in front of them.  It's like the food they eat on WW has become a form of self-flagellation, and now they can't stop dreaming about the day that it stops.  In this case, I think this desire for something sweet stemmed from D's chocolate bar, since they also spoke at length about how "terrible" it is to leave it out like that. and how they are just so weak, if there is any sweet food in the house they just CRAM it all in!  They just can't help themselves! 

I can't help but wonder if perhaps they would have more self control around food left in the house if they just ate what they wanted, when they wanted, and did their best to get plenty of nourishing, healthful vegetables and fruit and beneficial oils in there.  Isn't that the whole point of WW in the first place?  Eat what you want and lose wieght?