spacedcowgirl

This is not a new article, but I ran across it doing a search on an unrelated topic and observed that it was same shit, different day as far as reporting on obesity is concerned, so I wanted to vent about it. The article, charmingly and in totally non-alarmist fashion titled “Rates of death during childbirth soar as mothers get fatter,” appeared in the UK’s Daily Mail on December 4, 2007. The facts, as presented by the article, are that a study called the Confidential Enquiry into Maternal and Child Health found that “more than half of the 295 mothers who died between 2003 and 2005 were overweight or obese, including 15 per cent who were extremely obese,” and that the maternal death rate has risen 40% in 20 years, from about 10 per 100,000 to 14 per 100,000.

Here are my issues with the reporting. As I said, it’s same shit, different day so it’s not like I’m the first person ever to notice these particular problems with an obesity-related article in the mainstream media.

• The report features a photograph of a seated, not-stick-thin, yet certainly not fat, pregnant woman holding a television remote and apparently watching TV. I guess we’re supposed to think that this is an example of the kind of woman who is risking her life by being pregnant; after all, a la Kelly Clarkson, if you’re not Victoria Beckham or Nicole Richie, then you must be BMI-overweight and therefore on the brink of death. So say the Doctors of the Internets, who are Just Concerned About Your Health and Not At All Motivated By Whether They Personally Would Fuck the Woman in Question and who practice at TMZ, Perez Hilton, and the links in the Big Fat Deal post, not that I recommend going to any of those places other than Big Fat Deal itself, of course. (Incidentally–this is not relevant in any way–the woman in the photo is absolutely glowing and beautiful IMO.)
• I’m gonna say that the fact that “more than half” of the women who died in childbirth were overweight or obese probably has something to do with the fact that more than half of the UK female population is overweight or obese. This handy piece of information was actually provided in the article–which states that a quarter of UK women are obese and a further third are overweight–but reads as a further instance of scaremongering (OMG look how many women are fat! This really must be serious!) rather than presentation of a relevant fact.
• The study notes that the scary-sounding 40% increase in maternal deaths since the previous survey is not statistically significant. Which any of us could probably have guessed without being told when we’re talking 223 vs. 295 deaths out of–for the current, 2003-2005 study–2,113,831 pregnancies. I wouldn’t characterize this as a “soaring” death rate, but the Daily Mail would, I guess.
• We can all enjoy fun with Fat Hate Bingo as the article blames fat mothers for “[placing] more pressure on existing resources” and shares othering fat freak horror stories (Woman is too heavy to move from her house! Blood pressure cuffs not big enough for fatties! Doctors have to push TWO BEDS together to perform a C-section when woman’s bulk is too massive for operating table!) that IMO are more about inadequate training and equipment than anything else. To its credit, the article does indicate that the report “called for better communication between staff and better training in skills such as resuscitation,” but says the study “found no rise in the number of deaths relating to substandard care, however there were examples where health workers failed to identify and treat common conditions.” Um, to my mind you could make the case that any of the above instances could constitute “substandard care,” since, you know, potentially lifesaving treatments were delayed or important diagnoses missed due to provider or equipment failure. I’m not blaming the individual providers, and I know resources are tight, but it’s not like the problems described don’t have obvious solutions. Half of us are fat these days, so you might as well start taking some seminars or something on our needs rather than whining about how we break your exam tables and are hard to lift and blah blah blah. I don’t really care. Even if my weight were totally my “fault” and a result of shoveling in Suzy Q’s 24/7, I still don’t care. Jobs are hard and taking care of people is yours. Mine used to be sampling sewage. I’m sure both have their pros and cons.
• This may or may not be important, but the study distinguishes between “direct” and “indirect” deaths. A distinction is drawn between deaths that could only occur in pregnancy and deaths occurring as a result of conditions aggravated by pregnancy. The study authors report finding a higher death rate than other studies (which, they say, typically find about 7 deaths per 100,000 pregnancies), which they seem to feel means that their numbers are more valid, or something. But the rate of “direct” deaths they find is… just over 7 per 100,000 pregnancies. Hmm. I’m certainly not saying that no “indirect” deaths (for example, suicide, heart attacks, or stroke) are attributable to pregnancy. It’s just that it seems to me that fat is particularly susceptible to that “everybody knows” syndrome where everybody knows that if you have something like diabetes or high blood pressure, it’s because you’re fat, and everybody knows if you are fat and get pregnant, you’ll die, and do I necessarily trust that all of the “indirect” deaths are attributed 100% objectively when–no matter how upstanding and well-meaning they are–this organization wouldn’t exist if death in childbirth were somehow eradicated? And do I trust that the conclusions of the report with regard to the obesity “crisis” among pregnant women derive completely from the data without resort to “common knowledge” about how dangerous it is to be fat? No.
• The article closes by noting that if you exclude new immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, and so-called “health tourists” from the numbers, deaths actually decreased from the previous study period. I’m not sure if it’s comparing apples to apples to exclude all such women–after all, some women in these categories obviously did factor into the previous 2000-02 results, though apparently the number more than doubled between the previous and current periods–but if the decrease does hold, then isn’t all of this basically a non-story?
• Little is made also of the likelihood that the physical and psychological stresses of being a refugee or asylum seeker, in particular, increase the odds of a poor pregnancy outcome, which would tend to increase overall maternal deaths. The article does note that some “new arrivals,” as they are collectively classified, come to the UK in search of high-quality health care specifically due to a complicated pregnancy or medical history, which means that the pool of recent immigrants/refugees/asylum seekers probably contains a greater number of high-risk pregnancies in any case. This only strengthens the case that any increase in average weight does not appear to be having a significant impact on maternal deaths in the UK.

(I did note that although the language in the article seems non-judgmental to me on the face of it, the motivation for bringing these numbers forward seems potentially quite xenophobic–like, look at all of these foreign women sucking up our resources and driving up our maternal death rate; or let’s be sure and note that a lot of the women who died in childbirth don’t really “count” because they were not UK citizens and many were black African. To be fair, any negative “tone” on this subject appears to be confined to the Mail, whereas the study itself appears to focus more on addressing the health issues faced by this group of mothers.)

Anyway, I will say that out of 5 comments on the article, 4 of them are basically like “So?” Which is sort of encouraging. (And the fifth says, in its entirety: “Gosh - being overweight is unhealthy - so of course it’s going to be unhealthy for your child!” Um, not what the article was actually about, but nice knee-jerk “what about the children??? Being fat is child abuse!!!1!!” reaction there.) Maybe people are finally starting to spit some of this bullshit back out rather than swallowing it whole.

I am way behind on reading posts, so I just yesterday saw this one at Shakesville about the gross dichotomy between our disapproval of and voyeuristic appetite for/facilitation of “misbehavior” on the part of female celebrities, and the typical immediate recasting of the same “bad girls” as wholesome, settled, compliant moms as soon as they get pregnant. Naturally, Melissa McEwan observes in the post, male celebrities seem to have many more “characters” to “choose” from when their lives are recast as storylines by the gossip mags, and these “characters” are typically not as predictable, extreme, inflexible, or negative as those (basically “madonna” and “whore”) applied to famous young women.

Of course, what should I see while I was out shopping today than this Life & Style cover story entitled “From Party Girls to Moms,” which–at least judging from the web site excerpt, since I didn’t read the article itself–handily encapsulates the phenomenon Melissa described.

If there’s one thing Jamie Lynn Spears needs right now, it’s help. But the 17-year-old actress, who gave birth to her first child, daughter Maddie Briann, on June 19, is already refusing it. According to a family insider, Lynne Spears wanted to take her daughter and newborn granddaughter home with her after the delivery. But instead of going to Serenity, Lynne’s estate in Kentwood, Jamie Lynn insisted on going to her house.

I’m not saying a 17-year-old girl is well-equipped to handle motherhood completely alone. But I’m not sure getting sucked into the family compound is necessarily the best idea either. But regardless, she’s just a silly young mom–how can she know what’s best for her and her child? Clearly Life & Style–and this anonymous family friend who’s willing to dish dirt to a tabloid–know much better.

[...] at Hollywood hot spot Hyde on the night of June 17, an onlooker claims that after having some champagne, Christina began to dirty dance with her pals. Less thrilled was Christina’s music-executive husband, Jordan Bratman, who, concludes another clubgoer, usually has to be the one to keep the pop singer under control. But while new mom Christina been spotted clubbing up a storm on a weekly basis lately, she insists she can handle the dual roles of mom and party girl.

This one has it all: Tut-tutting at a young woman who dares to dance “dirty”, admiration for an upright, responsible hubby who has the onerous job of keeping his silly slut wife in line, and eye-rolling dismissal of Christina’s claim that she can both have a life and be a parent. (I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if this part were actually easier for a celebrity; after all, many contract out cleaning, lawn care, home maintenance, day care, etc., so why not spend some of your free time clubbing if that’s what you enjoy? It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re spending quantitatively less time actually with your child than, say, I would–since for me much of the time I spent at home would be spent doing the abovementioned tasks–even if this were any of anyone else’s business in the first place.)

Now, I recognize that Life & Style is hardly a paragon of journalism, and it’s not something I would normally read. (This is not to say I didn’t devour and thoroughly enjoy several issues of US Weekly that a friend considerately left on the bedside table when I was visiting recently. Stars: They’re Just Like Us! “They buy books!”) But in some ways publications like this make it easier to see which way the wind blows–kind of like how Star has no problem whatsoever with hand-wringing about skeletal celebrities right on the same cover with close-ups of Courtney Love’s cellulite. Other publications have at least some inkling that this is asinine, so they separate the two “stories” by issue or use euphemisms to disguise the weirdness. (Though they still haven’t quite gotten the hang of separating “Summer’s Best Cakes” from the new diet every month that tells you that for best results, you really probably should never eat carbs, or more than 1,200 calories a day, again.) But Star and Life & Style–boy, they just lay our entire misogynistic, fatphobic culture out there for all to see. Which is in some ways kind of handy. People can deny subtext, but when the inconsistency is right in your face, it’s pretty hard to ignore.

(I apologize that my first post on the fatosphere feed is only partially related to fat, but I felt like it ended up applying, so here goes. If you think I’m spamming up the feed, let me know.)

Does anyone have recommendations for a good tour company or other plan for visiting destinations in Europe? My husband and I are fortunate enough to be able to plan a fairly major trip to celebrate our 10th anniversary, and we would like to do a tour either of Scandinavia or the British Isles (or parts of either region). My ancestors are largely from Scandinavia and Ireland, and my husband’s are largely from England, Scotland, and Germany.

Now, there are major issues with the desire by rich white Americans for “authentic,” “off-the-beaten path” travel as raised in this Racialicious post (which is very thought-provoking and well worth reading–I personally am so insular as to never really have had the desire to travel to non-European destinations in the first place, which I’m sure says very bad things about me, but in any case many of the points raised by the author and in the comments had never occurred to me before and were quite eye-opening). Nevertheless, I’m just going to lay out there what I am looking for, and hope that a) the fact that I’m planning travel to wealthy European destinations in the first place will in and of itself mitigate some of the potential issues of entitlement, power/economic imbalance, and racism raised by the piece, and b) commenters will set me straight if I’m being an asshole.

So, I think what I am looking for is a package tour so that I don’t have to plan everything myself. I pretty much planned out my own activities when I got to go with my husband to a conference in Paris a few years ago, but that was easier because it was a shorter trip; it was less expensive because the company paid for his airfare and our hotel and it was therefore less risky if I accidentally planned stuff that ended up sucking, though luckily that ultimately did not happen; and I know a little about France and speak a little French, even though we’re talking high-school French level here, but at least it was a starting point. In any of the destinations I mentioned, I would be much more clueless and based on the cash outlay, language barrier (in the Scandinavian case) and general ignorance of the culture, and potential for stress, I think the trip would be more effective if I just let someone knowledgeable plan it for me.

As a stupid example, my dad is from the Upper Peninsula, so I’ve been there many times throughout my life. Therefore, I know that the pasties you can get by the Bridge kind of suck (though there are probably exceptions, I just don’t know about them, which sort of underlines my point), but this particular shop in Ishpeming has ones that I love. It’s not a “secret” or anything–I’m sure a lot of the customers are tourists just like me–and it’s actually a fairly prosperous chain as far as I know, with a couple of locations and the ability to ship frozen pasties and that kind of stuff. It’s just that if you had never visited the area or only had Google to go on, you might not know it was there (I mean, you might, but you might not), whereas if you asked someone in my family, you would. I don’t particularly need everything we do to be some kind of back-street exclusive experience containing no other Americans, I just want it to actually be good and for the trip to be fun and substantive and educational on the whole. If that makes any sense.

So, that being said, I would just as soon not end up on a cheesy tour where everyone is 70 years old (no offense to older folks; I’d just feel more comfortable if the group skewed more toward my own age–the same goes for the fact that I’d prefer not to end up with mostly high-school or college students either) and we spend all our time on a bus and/or in highly “touristy” places with crappy food and overpriced souvenirs. Let’s call this what it is; I don’t think I’m “better” than anyone else with some kind of high-minded desire for “authenticity” or to “blend in,” (or I don’t know, I probably do think that on some level, but anyway), but honestly I don’t want to waste the cost of what may be the biggest, most expensive trip of my life on subpar food and entertainment that’s considered “good enough” for clueless Americans who would secretly rather be at McDonald’s (as the stereotype might go), but not for people who live there or actually know anything about the culture.

Problem being, I don’t actually know anything about the culture, so I need to sort of contract that part of it out, and I do recognize that I sort of deserve what I get by doing so rather than researching the destinations thoroughly and/or knowing someone there who can show us around. Nevertheless, I’m hoping someone knows of high-quality tour companies that they can recommend. I have one recommendation for a Rick Steves tour; any corroboration for that, or other suggestions? We don’t really have any physical limitations so a more strenuous tour shouldn’t be a problem if that opens up additional options.

Here is the part where I share two things that probably say a great deal about my own white privilege and ugly-American-ness (or perhaps ugly whiteness), but also serve to explain why I’m leery of tours and “planned vacations” in general.

Number one, when I was in high school in North Carolina, a friend asked me along on her church trip to a sort of small-time local amusement park (warning: annoying music plays automatically). While there, we saw a show put on by local Native Americans and consisting of (what I assume were) facsimiles of “native costume” made of bandannas, accompanied by a lot of self-deprecating jokes about Native American culture and even about, essentially, the fact of being conquered and displaced by Europeans, all in a very lighthearted, “what are you gonna do” kind of tone, while all the white folks in the audience laughed. As a high-schooler, this made me feel almost sick with guilt and discomfort.

Of course, now I am aware that it’s not as simple as my outrage at the time would indicate. For example, you might well say that I deserved to be uncomfortable given the unjust situation that my ancestors perpetrated that gave rise to the show in the first place. And at the same time, obviously my guilt and a quarter won’t even buy you a phone call, so I can sit there all day long and feel terrible about myself and have my white sensibilities outraged and it still doesn’t do any real person a bit of good, whereas the money I paid to see the show does do real people some good. So I don’t know. I do think that I know that in an ideal world, I would hope not to be paying for entertainment that caters specifically to my sense of superiority as an American and bolsters my own self-satisfaction (even though I’m going to majority white countries in this particular case, U.S.-centricism is still potentially an issue), perhaps by relying on caricatures of nationality or ethnicity to make me feel more comfortable, and I would prefer my money not go to a company that trades on that. And maybe I wouldn’t even recognize such a phenomenon for what it was unless you guys tip me off, so that’s why I’m explaining all this.

Basically, even though I know I am absolutely as racist as or perhaps much more racist than the next person, and have a vast amount to work on in that respect, I like to think that I’m “better” than a tour that would cater to Americans’ sense of superiority and entitlement. Whether that is actually true is debatable, of course.

Number two, my in-laws went to Colombia on a cruise, and this cruise was the most hokey, controlled, tourist-trap thing you can imagine, from what I could glean. Now, you might say that at least they weren’t treading too far into the actual culture to gawk at and trample on private life, and at least they were contributing to someone’s livelihood by paying for photos with “locals,” visiting pre-approved landmarks, and shopping for high-priced emeralds at preselected shops that count on you not to know that you’re being overcharged. (Both general points raised in the Racialicious comments). But isn’t there somewhere a happy medium where you support local economies and maybe develop rapport and empathy with people outside of your own country, without at the same time violating people’s privacy, exoticizing them, or having your sense of yourself as the “superior other” reinforced at every turn, which doesn’t seem like it can be a positive thing? In other words, is there a way to be a “responsible tourist” that falls somewhere between tourist traps (that IMO say more about you and your comfort zone than about the culture of the country you’re visiting), and imposing yourself into areas where you do not belong and are really not wanted?

Anyway. Enough about my tiresome internal struggle. The other possibility would be to go to the maritime provinces of Canada, so if anyone has any suggestions about tours or just what to see if we go that route, that would be great also.

Or, does anyone have other destinations altogether to suggest? I’m not big on going to the beach just to go, for example, but if it’s a beach (or other) destination that is particularly beautiful or cool or that you really loved, let me know.

Thanks for any advice you can provide!!

Congratulations to the Detroit Red Wings on beating Pittsburgh in 6 games and bringing the Stanley Cup back to Hockeytown! This is the 11th time the franchise has won the Cup. Yay Wings!

I learned via La Chola that Sidharth Chand of Bloomfield Hills, MI took second in the 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee on Friday. Awesome job, Sid!

(Incidentally, though obviously I’d have been rooting for the Michigan contestant if I had actually known the bee was on this weekend and had actually therefore watched it–as a Purdue grad I’m also pretty excited that the winner was from West Lafayette, IN. So a big congratulations also to Sameer Mishra!)

I heard last week on Michigan Radio that Michigan’s Attorney General, Mike Cox, is one of nine state Attorneys General to request that the California Supreme Court delay the effective date of its ruling on gay marriage until after the November election. Reason being, California voters will likely decide a ballot initiative on the matter in the election, and Cox hopes they will follow our voters’ regrettable lead and adopt a constitutional ban.

(Yes, we do have an anti-gay-marriage amendment, which from what I understand is even stricter than most because of wording to the effect of “or similar union for any purpose,” which outlaws civil unions and domestic partnerships–and I am deeply ashamed of my fellow voters who felt moved to ensconce this intolerance in our state constitution, where it will presumably serve as a reminder to future generations of exactly how fearful and parsimonious Michigan voters were back in 2004. I certainly hope I see the day when the amendment is overturned. But the voters’ action does not excuse Cox seeking out opportunities to compound and worsen the bigotry.)

I saw this entry on the topic, which reminded me that I had intended to write about it here, at Blogging For Michigan today. BFM has a perspective that I appreciate, decrying instances of Michigan state legislators and officials focusing on divisive issues that are important to fringe interest groups, not actual voters. I agree wholeheartedly; in this case, first of all, I believe that it is morally wrong to deny gay couples the same rights that I enjoy as a straight married woman. But even if I didn’t, I would still feel that pandering to the religious right while our great state faces real problems is a ridiculous waste of time and money.

I love living here. I was on a routine drive a couple of weeks ago, taking I-696 home from Royal Oak, and just drove along with a dumb grin on my face, reading the names on the exit signs and remembering how fortunate my husband and I were to be able to move back home 6 years ago. I take so much pride in our state’s history, culture, industry, great cities, gorgeous scenery, agriculture, you name it. Hell, I even love my and my fellow Midwesterners’ silly flat nasal accent. It hurts and angers me every time I hear something like the conversation I overheard in Kohl’s a few weeks ago (two acquaintances, a young man and a middle-aged woman who appeared to be the mother of one of his friends, were catching up, bemoaning the economic situation here, and I heard the young man say “Oh, I’m getting out of Michigan as soon as I graduate”).

I need our legislature to quit fucking around and work for me, and not even really for me–FOR OUR STATE, which I would hope we have a common interest in uplifting. I am tired of our economic problems being either minimized or (more frequently, in my opinion) exaggerated in legislative sound bites, never mind if the floodgates bleeding residents to other parts of the country are opened that much further as a result of the rhetoric, to score political points. We still have great jobs (though I am certainly not minimizing the situation of the many individual Michiganders who cannot find work, good jobs are still out there in a lot of fields), great places to live and vacation, great universities, and a great work force with a solid technical base. It’s time for our elected and appointed officials to start taking some fucking pride in themselves and the state they claim to love and serve.

On a related note, this is an interesting report on Michigan’s present and future economy.

I was feeling pretty outraged, disgusted, and saddened already by this situation (click the links in the post for additional information).

And then I saw this (not related, just even way more mind-bogglingly disgusting and upsetting than the Rachel Moss fiasco). I had more or less given up on the world a long time ago, but this was the last straw. And this without actually viewing the video.

But this thread at Jezebel, related to the first item, restored my faith in humanity a teeny bit. 134 comments on a topic related to fatphobia and only TWO concern trolls (granted, along with a couple other weird fat haters, but even those seem generally of the live-and-let-live variety)? One of whom is not even “that bad”? And gems like the following quotations from the comments to boot? On a NON-FA blog? I swear, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a discussion about fat this respectful at a place that does not actively and constantly both enforce rules against fat hatred, and delete trollish comments.

Okay, I don’t care what else there is to know about this person. She is not cool. She is awful and mean.

She is a female misogynist who believes she is the exception to the rule that women are inferior to men.

The new one I hear is that I use too many resources…I guess fat is not green. Neither is douchebaggery, world.

Having finished my 10K a couple of weeks ago, I am now switching my running strategy to a method of training that hopefully will improve my aerobic fitness. See, I can run fairly long distances (my longest 10K training run was 8 miles, and I did that), but in any given run my heart rate takes about 5 minutes to get up into the 170s or 180s, and then stays there for the rest of the time. I also find that for any distance over 5 miles or so, I am generally finishing on sheer force of will. I lose my form, slow down, and get exhausted by the end of the run, because I can’t seem to stop myself from starting out faster than I should. I usually do average out to an overall faster pace than I set out to accomplish (which is not necessarily great anyway; “long slow” training runs are supposed to be, well, slow), but from what I understand, in general I should be doing the second half of any given run faster than the first half. I just can’t seem to resist pushing myself overly hard to start with, then not being able to control how I finish because I’m too tired.

This started because while I was researching training plans, paces, heart rates, etc. in preparation for the race, I came across some information on a method of training for people with poor aerobic fitness that caught my attention. The descriptions at the link seemed about right for what I was experiencing, especially the following bullet points:

b. You are incapable of running at low heart rates, for example, you find you have to walk at a heart rate of 180-your age. [spacedcowgirl note: In my case, I generally can't get my heart rate up to 180-my age when walking, but I certainly can't keep it down there for long when running.]

[...]

d. You have difficulty completing your long training runs and your pace slows down in the last several miles, just in order to finish them.

e. You are completely shot at the end of your long training runs, or even your short runs. (You probably will be after most forms of speed work, that’s expected, to a degree).

I think this might be good for me for a couple of other reasons too; first of all (I suspect like many people who grew up dieting and viewing activity solely as calorie-burning or punishment) I have always tended to push too hard, having to actively fight against beating myself up if every workout isn’t longer or faster than the last. So for my own well-being and to avoid burnout, I want to break this cycle. I also have a very fast resting pulse (nearly 100 before I started running–even though at that time I was already a regular gymgoer doing other activities such as the elliptical–and it’s still around 80), and lowering it further is one of the outcomes that I have been hoping to see from running. From what I have read, this type of training may help.

I read somewhere (though I can’t find it now) that 6 months is the best “basebuilding period” for someone with very poor aerobic fitness. I don’t have any more races scheduled this year, and I am planning to run another 10K and possibly a half marathon next year, so the next 6 months are a convenient time for me to work on this. Plus, I was starting to get some aches and pains near the end of my 10K training program, so I think it probably won’t hurt me to take it easy for a while anyway.

So, yesterday I went out on my first low heart rate “run.” Wow, was that an eye-opening experience. I started out thinking I would try to keep my heart rate between 139 and 149 bpm–it’s harder to find information online about what the low end of the range should be, but many people seemed to be using about a 10-beat range–but soon found that I was nowhere near being able to control it that well. I soon started letting it drop to 125 during the walking intervals just to give myself somewhere to go on the running intervals. Even so, I couldn’t run for more than probably a minute at most before having to drop back to a walk for a couple of minutes.

Of course, the local high school was letting out early when I went by for some unknown reason, which meant there were little groups of teenagers seemingly everywhere I went for about 3/4 of the run. So I think I was panicking a little and my heart was going faster than it would have otherwise, because I find it stressful enough to run my fat, tights-clad ass past teenagers anyway, much less in a circumstance where I’m stopping and starting every 2 minutes and I’m sure everyone watching is assuming that I have never run before in my life. (And whether they actually were or not, this is another good opportunity to remind myself that you can’t tell a single thing about a person’s health or eating or exercise habits by looking at them.)

I did find that even within this one run, my ability to keep my heart rate down while running did improve somewhat. Eventually I got better at forcing myself to go so slowly that I had a fighting chance at staying in the range. The source I linked above indicates that a lot of runners have trouble either mentally or physically with going as slowly as they need to at first, so at least this one isn’t just me. But on the whole–although in many ways it was quite a pleasant run/walk since I wasn’t even tired, much less pushing myself to anywhere near the exhausting level I normally would–I think we can agree that the results were kind of discouraging. Still, I’m going to keep it up for at least 8 weeks and see if I start to improve.

I was thinking about this and why–other than genetics or the possibility that this training isn’t appropriate for me for some reason–I might have such poor “aerobic fitness.” Why, in other words, it’s possible that all of my knocking myself out with strenuous exercise over the years may have actually not done me much good in certain ways. And I have concluded that it’s likely the fault of… dieting and fat hatred. I realize this may seem like a stretch, but bear with me here.

First, take calories in-calories out monitoring such as Activity Points, which I recently chucked. (This is specific to Weight Watchers, but I think a similar focus on exercise “intensity” applies to most diets.) I won’t bore you with the details, but essentially you get more of them if you work out at a more intense level, measured either by heart rate or perceived exertion level. For that reason, since I started WW, I worked out at or above 85% of my maximum heart rate as often as I could. I often cut warm-ups short and started out at an exhausting level so I could get my heart rate up really high and keep it there, because if I didn’t, I felt like I was being “lazy.” (Incidentally, I knew this probably wasn’t good for my heart, but I wanted as many APs as possible, so I did it anyway.) I was also afraid that I would accidentally slip below the zone for “high-intensity” activity without knowing and therefore overestimate my Activity Points, so it seemed safer to stay well above the cutoff.

(I hesitate to make this comparison, because I have never experienced the horror of anorexia and I don’t want it to sound like I’m trivializing the condition in any way, but this type of behavior–which so many of us engage in–strikes me as perhaps a distant cousin of how folks with eating disorders live in constant fear that they may accidentally be ingesting more calories than they realize. Whatever the case, I consider this behavior destructive to me personally, but I couldn’t seem to break away from it while APs were in the picture.)

Secondly, and this is more general, all of us who grew up fat know what a relentless push there is from early childhood to diet and exercise. I was encouraged to run, ride bikes, and do aerobics from a very young age–and perhaps this wouldn’t be such a bad thing, except that I was at the same time made very aware that these activities were “for exercise” and to burn calories, which I feel kind of sucks as motivation for anyone and can be especially problematic for young children. (Though it wasn’t all bad; I do remember greatly enjoying exercising with my Mousercise record. ) Maybe it was partially the fact that it was the ’80s, age of “no pain, no gain,” but I think it was also the fact that I was the fat kid that made me feel like no level of exertion was enough. The more I sweated, the more I felt like it was my fault for being so fat and out of shape. It was this weird dichotomy where I wouldn’t have felt like I had done “enough” if it weren’t grueling, but the fact that it was grueling made me feel ashamed because I assumed whatever I was doing would have been easy for the thin kids.

This carried on into adulthood. It manifested itself in the idea that if you are fat, you are held to a higher standard than everyone else. After all, thin gymgoers are just there to stay thin (never mind that they are actually there for a variety of reasons), but as a fat person you have to get thin. Until you get thin, you aren’t allowed to rest. What’s more, you’re fat and lazy, or so you’ve always believed; you can’t trust your body to tell you whether a workout is too hard or too easy or whether you are too fatigued or injured to continue, any more than you can trust your body to know when you’ve had enough food. Better to exercise as much and as hard as possible, and eat as little as possible, just to be on the safe side. The risks of appearing foolish, deluded, or lazy, or of not atoning sufficiently for your sin of being fat or “greedy,” are just too great.

Now, I am not a physiologist, and actually I don’t really know if there’s anything to the low heart rate training regimen I’m undertaking; it’s just something I’m going to try to see if it helps improve my fitness. I also realize that different things work for different people, and there is nothing inherently “better” about working out at a lower intensity, any more than there is about working out at a higher intensity. Maybe some of you have found that you get bored at lower intensities, or that your fitness level stagnates unless you work a little harder. Or perhaps your aerobic fitness is already good, and you wouldn’t get the same utility from a program like this as I am hoping to. And “aerobic fitness” is both kind of a vague concept, and only one measure of fitness and health–perhaps your goals are different. So obviously this is a very individual thing.

But speaking for myself only, all of this makes me a little mad. All my life I’ve been told, implicitly or explicitly, that harder is better. If I wanted to get thin, after all, I’d have to overcome my “lazy” nature and really bust my butt. And I believed this and believed that following this strategy would make me not only thin, but fit. If the sources I’ve seen are to be believed, this strategy has worked for me to a point (don’t get me wrong; I’m still very proud of my running accomplishments, and pleased with the endurance, strength, and mental health improvements that I have experienced as a result of increasing my cardiovascular activity and strength training over the past few years)–but may also have increased my risk of injury and burnout, as well as being possibly useless or at least suboptimal for improving my aerobic fitness. What a fucking shock–messages sent to fat people about what they need to do “for their health” may actually be ineffective or even detrimental, and furthermore actually rooted in hatred of fat people and their perceived “moral failings.”

But because I am so much more capable now of seeing this kind of stuff for what it is, and so much more focused on taking care of myself than I used to be (though I still have a long way to go), let’s look forward instead of back. I’m excited about this training because for maybe the first time in my life–and maybe it just took being a little older to come to this point–I have a plan that is truly focused on improving my health (and, as a secondary goal, improving my running performance, which is sort of separate from health but also worthwhile for me), not weight loss or calorie-burning. Maybe I’m making more progress on this HAES thing than I thought.

Please go read Sandy’s discussion of recent data analysis indicating that no actual statistical increases in children’s sizes have occurred since 1999. Note especially her sources describing poor outcomes from studies on the effectiveness of nutrition- and exercise-based interventions in schools (also see Rethinking Thin for detailed discussion of this), so nope, that’s not it either. (Not to mention that I consider it far more heartbreaking than some trumped-up “epidemic” of fat that kids as young as elementary age are being introduced to calorie-counting, exercise-as-calorie-burning, “portion control,” BMI, and just in general being encouraged to stigmatize fat kids even more than they did back in my day, all of which I believe probably contribute to eating disorders). If you are still convinced that there are more fat kids now than there were 10 years ago, because you “see so many more fat kids now than [you] used to,” you need to recognize that you are exercising selective memory with a hearty side dish of being influenced by panic-based media coverage of OMG CHILDHOOD OBESITY. Yes, really.

I am about fucking fed up with the “obesity epidemic” anyway, and I have seen statistics indicating that adults’ sizes have not increased much at all either over the past 10 or 15 years (which I am too lazy–or perhaps FAT AND LAZY?–to look up at the moment). The fact that we take as gospel truth the existence of an “epidemic” that is far more spin than reality makes me despair for humanity even more than usual. I know you know this (or if not, at least you already know how I feel about this), but these are our children’s lives we’re screwing with here. And I echo Sandy’s outrage on the matter:

When will taxpayers call these special interests on their bluff and begin to hold them responsible for the massive amount of public moneys and resources they’ve spent in the name of a childhood obesity epidemic — money that could have gone a long way towards improving educational opportunities and healthcare for children and families? When will the public demand evidence-based public health policies? When will parents hold these obesity interests accountable for the harmful effects of their initiatives and the nonstop weight obsessions that have surrounded their children?

I wrote a really long, convoluted post a while back (I know that doesn’t narrow it down in the slightest, so here is the one I’m specifically referring to) in which I tried to make the point that even though things are undoubtedly better in many ways for women now than they were in the past, I still feel a vague sense of unease that in other ways, things might actually be getting worse. In the post I was struggling to convey that while I did understand that some feminist and social issues are undoubtedly “more important” than others, I didn’t feel comfortable with the idea that the issues on which we have made significant progress, and the “trivial” stuff, can now be let go to concentrate on other things, because I feel that doing so could be more dangerous and destructive to the progress already made than we might realize. But now Melissa McEwan (of Shakesville) has put up a great post at Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog that in part focuses on this question. I feel that it better conveys the points I was trying to make, so definitely go read it rather than trying to decipher my ramblings.