"Be Hungry all the time

so that other people

will like the way you look?

That's just dumb."

It seems that "Eating Healthy"  was a problem even 60+ years ago.
See this 1951 propaganda film for amusing and erroneous advice.

The message here:  "the way you ate made you sick"  is very similar to "the way you ate made you fat".  Both messages attach Blame for personal behavior. 

I find the film's portrayal of a "normal" sized family interesting.  Although the population here in the 2010s is generally heavier than the 1950s population, each member of this family (including the children) appeared to be heavier than the people who are commonly shown in most of today's food commercials.  

Mom appears to have a BMI well-above the Obesity border, and Dad's BMI probably is over that border as well .. although his weight might fall merely in the high-area of the Overweight BMI range. The girl (teenage?) appeared to have a mid-normal BMI -- which isn't thin enough for today's skinny jeans, and the pre-adolescent boy would need to wear relaxed-fit pants.

Look at the amount of food served here, and how much everyone was instructed to eat.  Although the film depicts the time of my own childhood, I was seldom served, or even allowed to eat,  such a large meal.  There are a great many calories in: a 4 to 6 oz glass of Juice, bowl of cereal, couple of eggs, a couple of pieces of bacon, some buttered toast and 8-10 oz glass of whole-milk.  About 1,000 + calories, which is actually MORE calories than my body (as a small, sedentary, elderly, female) will burn in an entire day.

Did anyone REALLY ever believe that a healthy person will get a stomach ache from:

• eating a small amount of food really fast,

          or

• eating only a few bites at dinner due to an afternoon snack of a small sugared soda and candy bar?

Also notice how small the boy's soda bottle was.  And how just he tossed away the empty bottle and candy wrappers … although he was outside with NO waste containers anywhere about.

The difficulties of eating "Healthy".

 
Graphic by:  This is Not a Diet - its your life.

    

                                

I am definitely the best witness of my own experience. For a lifetime I’ve examined myself, my behaviors and how they affect my body. I’ve gathered evidence, researched the issues, analyzed the data, and formed conclusions about myself which are based on the relevant evidence.

I’ve chosen to view dieting as a hobby, and for many reasons, I plan to continue my personal involvement in that activity.

However, I’m thinking that it is time to end my relationship with Fat Sigma. While doing so, I’d like to make my reasons for the breakup clear. So, I’ll reverse the ususal breakup statement which is shown in the picture here, and say to the Fat-Biased-in-Society:

“It’s not ME, it’s YOU.”

The following article is one that I wish I had written myself.

They Don’t Know Fatties
          by Ragen Chastain  -  www. danceswithfat

I was thinking today about how often we are told that, as fat people, everyone who is not fat is a better witness to our experience than we are. How often someone is considered an expert in weight loss, or becoming thin, or being not fat simply because they happen to be thin.

We are told that we’re not competent witnesses to what and how much we do or should eat, or how much we do or should move. Our bodies are held up as proof that we must be lying or deluded and that we can’t possibly know, or be doing, what’s best for us. We are told that, because of how we look, we should be subject to more scrutiny than those who don't look like us, we should lose our right to speak for ourselves, we should be stereotyped and stigmatized and bullied and war should be waged against us - that the way we look means that we shouldn't get to choose how highly we prioritize our health or the path we choose to get there like everyone else does.

We are forced to listen to people like Jillian and Bob on The Biggest Loser prattle on insufferably about how fat people think and what fat people do and what it's like to be a fat person as if we are all walking around under the guide of the same brain just because we share a single physical characteristic. We, and the rest of society, are told that everyone from Dr. Phil to Dr. Oz to random people on the internet know more about how and why we think and act, and what it's like to be us, than we do.

When we tell people that constant social stigma is damaging to our health, we are told that it's for our own good and we should be grateful to hear that our bodies are socially unacceptable more often and more aggressively than we already are. When we tell people that we are not suffering from obesity, but are suffering from stigma and oppression, we are told that we are responsible for solving bullying and social stigma by changing ourselves.

We are told that if we don’t accept someone else’s account of how we think, eat, and exercise, then we’re “in denial”. It’s a system designed to make us powerless. Our oppressors (well-meaning or otherwise) get to tell the world who we are and what we do and how we think and what it's like to be us, and if we disagree they call us liars, and claim that we are not capable of speaking for ourselves. Not only are we denied a place in discussions about us, we are actively silenced and shouted down when we attempt to speak up. People have managed to successfully stigmatize and stereotype our bodies, and then argue that those stereotypes make us unqualified to advocate for ourselves. Successful stigmatization and oppression should not become self-perpetuating by virtue of self-justification. In other words, this is seriously fucked up.

So if you start to question yourself, to wonder if Dr. Oz really is a better witness to your experience than you are, then I implore you to stop and consider this possibility: You are not wrong, it is not you. It’s a system set up to make us feel that we are not the most credible witnesses to our own experiences. It’s wrong, it’s oppressive, and it shouldn't happen. The next time somebody feels the need to tell you “something you don’t know” about being you – your body, lifestyle, behaviors, thoughts or health – feel free to tell them (out loud or in your mind) that it’s not you, it’s them; that you know everything you need to know about being you, and when you want their opinion they will be among the very first to know.

Adobe Photoshop is a piece of software that can be used to do many amazing things with images and photos. One amazing thing it can do is "re-proportioning" which is shown in the short video at the bottom of this post.

Watch this video and keep it in mind when viewing fashion or fitness magazines. This is a common practice.

The images we see on billboards and in magazines are not real. Comparing ourselves to those unreal images is like comparing a real person to a cartoon.