OMFG stop the presses! Paula Deen has type II Diabetes!

Paula Deen is...gasp...EATING! While fat! And she has the utter audacity to be enjoying it! The unbelievable temerity of this wench!

First of all, like Jane of xoJane said, we need to leave Paula Deen the hell alone. Her health is no-one's business but hers.

Here is what Aurora says:

Granted, I am an LPN nurse and not a doctor. But in my time as a caregiver I have noticed that people of ALL SIZES get diseases such as type II diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease and that these diseases are more prevalent in...get ready for it...OLDER PEOPLE! Curse you, Grandma and Grandpa for driving up our health care costs! Institute Carousel!

(For anyone who doesn't recognize sarcasm, there it is. And for anyone who doesn't understand the Carousel reference--shame on you! Go watch Logan's Run immediately.)

Paula Deen is 64. Type II diabetes is mostly hereditary and becomes increasingly likely with age. A person may feel crappy if they eat nothing but sweets, but you really can't "sugar" yourself into diabetes.

I like Paula Deen. She cooks for the enjoyment of it. She cooks real food that regular people can relate to, not stuff that most of us can't even pronounce. For her, cooking is about happiness, enjoyment, and sharing, not about being "ze great chef." I like watching Ze Great Chefs do their thing too, but I love Paula's anti-snobbishness. She is someone that I could really relate to. 

So if anything, let's offer her our support. For gosh sake, quit picking on the woman. She seems like a pretty  live and let live person. Let's do her the same favor.

I Don't Need a Celebrity to Tell Me How To Feel About My Body

This isn't me, but it is a similar body type. I am five foot seven-ish. I weigh 295 pounds. I do not have any pressing health issues. According to our sizeist society, I should hardly be able to move and should have one foot in the grave thanks to my Death Fat. 

In an IVillage article, various "celebrities" spoke about body flaws. A commenter named Lisa said that if she was pulling $80 million a year, she wouldn't care about cellulite either in response to Kim Kardashian's earth-shattering confession that she has the dreaded (gasp!) cellulite.

What Lisa said. I don't need Kim KarTRASHian or any other celebutante's opinion to tell me how to feel about my body. I spent a lot of years hating my body. I learned to be at peace with it because other people's opinions don't matter. As long as I'm healthy, that's all that matters. Being hateful to one another over what our bodies look like is ugly, and it needs to stop.

BTW, I am certainly not down on Kim for the shape of her body. What I dislike about her is the fact that she is someone who has absolutely everything and gives back nothing. $30,000 alligator skin purse, anyone? In an economy where people are struggling just to keep their homes and unemployment is at an all time high. Ugh!

Why is it that when I look at my body, which is similar to this one in a mirror, my automatic reaction is to think "ugh, I'm so fat and ugly" but when I see the woman in the picture, I think she's beautiful. How dare society tell us to hate our bodies? How dare people say snarky things about fat people?

I have a back injury which makes movement harder some days than others, but it had nothing to do with my size and a hell of a lot to do with the type of work I do. I work in a hospital. I help weak and injured patients move. Sometimes its harder than others. And I've gotten hurt a few times. Last winter I exacerbated things by falling down the back porch steps. This had nothing to do with my size and a whole lot to with low visibility and ice. I was on temporary disability for 6 weeks.

I became very depressed because I couldn't work and felt useless. If the stereotypes were true, I should have been thrilled to stay home and eat buckets of fried chicken and boxes of bonbons. Instead, I could hardly eat because I was so depressed.

I'm 47 years old, I'm fat, and I've been married for 9 years to a man who eats about the same amount that I do and remains rail-thin. He is not a "fat fetishist," he dated women of various sizes before ending up with me. I consider myself extremely lucky to have him! Not because he's thin, but because he's an amazing, loving, considerate, kind, funny, intelligent human being.
The sad thing is, if I hadn't been able to find a man, (and I certainly kissed a few toads before I did) I'm sure I would have blamed my body, as we are conditioned to do. How wrong is this? How sad and how awful to go through life hating ourselves.
This is why size acceptance is necessary!

There are men who like...gasp...fat women???

I guess the Universe thought that I needed steam coming out my ears today. Here is an article in the Village Voice about PERVERTS who like...shudder....FAT WOMEN!!!!

In actuality, the article states that the "regular" men whose partners happened to be (gasp) fat did not identify as chubby chasers. But there's still that message of "why would a skinny dude date a (blech) fat chick???"

I said this on the Facebook page that linked to the article:

Um...shocker here! Fat women are people too! And some people like them. However, as a fat woman, I was always pissed off by "chubby chasers" the same way a woman with big breasts might be pissed off by a man who was only interested in her for her chest. I didn't think I'd ever get married again, but I did--to a guy who liked me for ME, not because he was obsessed with a particular type of physique. We were friends for a number of years before we became more and he had dated women of all different sizes and types including a supermodel-looking woman. Articles like this annoy me. We are all human, regardless of size or body type.

And here was my comment on the article itself:

Huh--imagine the idea that a guy might meet a woman who HAPPENED to be fat and he might decide that he likes her as a person. Gee, that's pretty damn radical right there!
I am a plus-sized woman married to an average-size man, whom I was friends with for a number of years before we became more than friends. He has never cared about a person's size. He dated a variety of women of different body types--including a supermodel type--before he and I realized we belonged together. Guess what he liked best about me--my personality. Now, there's a shocking notion!
This society is way too concerned with what is supposed to be "sexy." We are very superficial, and it's very sad.

The Media Hates Any Non-Thin Body

A response to this post about photoshopped models:

I agree with what Heather said. Also, I wanted to say that the photoshopped image on the right in the first photo is horrific. I was a teenager in the late 1970's and early 1980's, and I became bulimic because I didn't look like the photos in the magazines. Like Heather, I am also "morbidly obese," although I disagree with that term because I am not "morbidly" anything. I am basically quite healthy. I also am not the "lazy fatty" stereotype. I work a lot, on my feet. In fact, I have hardly ever met a lazy fatty.
We larger people have very few positive representations of us in the media. The so called "plus size" models are actually average size women (size 10-12) It's no wonder that girls who don't fit the "model mold" (which is most of them) have body image issues.

Middle Aged Weight Obsession

There is an article on the oft annoying but sometimes useful diet blog about the weight obsessions of middle aged women. Here are my thoughts.

I'm not sure why anyone would find this surprising. I came of age in the mid 1970's. Even then there was pressure to be thin, which was not how I was built. The instant I developed hips, I also developed bulimia. I have gone through years of self hate before deciding that if someone doesn't looking at my stocky self, they can look somewhere else. I have too many other things going on to worry about being obsessively vain about my looks.

The Fat Broad Speaks on Size Prejudice

Size prejudice is very real and very ridiculous. This world is tough enough, we should be kind to each other. I work in the medical profession and there are healthy large people and unhealthy skinny ones, as well as the other way around. Also the idea that all fat people are lazy gluttons is erroneous. Most big people work hard although some have handicaps that keep them from doing so. Don't judge what ya don't know--that's what I taught my own kids.

For what its worth, my husband is very slender and he is not a "chubby chaser." He doesn't have a fetish for heavy women. The woman he dated before me had super-model looks. He and I were just friends at the time. One of the reasons he stopped dating her was because she was so obsessed with her appearance that she spent all the time fixing her makeup, talking about dieting, makeup, or working out, and putting down other people's looks. My man is a very easygoing guy and he didn't care for that attitude. We fell in love with each other's personalities. Though he really is adorable, and I, of course, am drop dead sexy! ;-D 

My husband and I don't talk about our exes much, but I have to say that I disliked this gal from the time I met her on instinct and the more he told me, the more I disliked her. The reason she started dating him? His sexy European (Norwegian) accent. Thereafter she picked him apart and tried to change everything about him. She was always after him to go to the gym, bulk up, and get hair plugs. If he cared about doing any of those things I'd support him, just like he supports my efforts to lose weight when I'm inspired to try to do so. But we love each other as we are. Dating someone for what they COULD be is always an exercise in failure. Believe me, I know. I did it many a time in the past. "He COULD BE a really great guy if he'd just stop drinking." Yeah...I know that one all too well!