Greta Christina's fat positive manifesto

[ciphergoth]

I froze the discussion here because I thought it deserved a top-level post of its own, rather than being under a general discussion of Greta Christina. A few weeks ago she posted a very interesting series of articles on the fat-positive movement and her own beliefs; I'd be very interested to read more about what people think of them.

"I was frankly shocked at how callous most of the fat-positive advocates were about my bad knee. I was shocked at how quick they were to ignore or dismiss it. They were passionately concerned about the quality of life I might lose if I counted calories or stopped eating chocolate bars every day. But when it came to the quality of life I might lose if I could no longer dance, climb hills, climb stairs, take long walks, walk at all? Eh. Whatever. I should try exercise or physical therapy or something. Oh, I'd tried those things already? Well, whatever."

• The Fat-Positive Diet
• The Fat-Positive Skeptic
• An Open Letter to the Fat-Positive Movement

Comments

[djpsyche.livejournal.com]

But thinking, "I can never have another donut again as long as I live" would make this intolerable. Thinking, "I can have a donut today if I have a light dinner" makes this do-able.

And this is the nutshell of my argument of why Quitting Smoking Is Harder Than Dieting.

[purplerabbits.livejournal.com]

I don't think I agree, because dieting, or even just healthy eating, isn't a case of saying "I can never have another donut again as long as I live" it's saying "I can never eat without having to think about it again". Just giving something up cold can be way easier.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lj_sucks_/]

I was diagnosed as celiac, and on a gluten-free diet for the first 15 years of my life. I didn't grow up being able to eat things without thinking about it first, so maybe that's why I didn't find it an insurmountable challenge to carry on doing so.

There's a parallel here with people who say "Oh my god, (antidepressant|diabetes) medication, I could never cope with having to take a drug every day for the rest of my life"--again, as a sickly child with hellish allergies, I grew up needing some kind of medication every day, so the idea of my life or sanity depending on a daily dose of pharmaceuticals just isn't a big deal for me.

Whether quitting smoking or dieting is easier probably depends on the personality of the individual. I believe that the research shows pretty clearly that some people have addictive personalities. Looking at it from the opposite side, I have amazing reserves of stubbornness compared to most people. So for me, quitting smoking would probably be easier.

On the other hand, there are people who find evaluating complex decisions (such as navigating the maze of options in a restaurant or supermarket) to be challenging and stressful. Again, there's science to back this up; even some large scale studies showing health changes in the former East Germany, for example. For those people, the temptation to give up on the complex multi-dimensional decisions and eat what appeals to their taste buds is probably as appealing as some find the temptation to suck on another cancer stick.

[ceb.livejournal.com]

I disagree. Firstly, a lot of eating is habit, and once you're over the effort of breaking a habit and forming a new, healthier one then you're back to not having to think about it all the time. Secondly, changing eating habits also changes the way things taste; if you avoid eating salty things (say) for a while, when you go back to them you may well find they're no longer so pleasant to eat.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Ainslie's Breakdown of Will makes exactly the opposite argument - that dieting is harder than quitting smoking exactly because it's easier to make a clear and simple rule and stick to it than navigate the maze of making choices that keep total calorie intake at about the right amount.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I'm going to come over all Ben Goldacre here (ooh matron) and suggest that it's probably a bit more complicated than that. Maybe for some people it's easier to go 'cold turkey' and say, "I'm never going to have a cigarette/drink alcohol/eat a Curly Wurly again!", and for others it's easier to cut down gradually and allow oneself the occasional indulgence balanced against other, healthier/safer behaviours?

And actually, if what we're talking about is harm reduction, isn't it still good for people to cut down to 'every once in a while' even if they never get to the point of completely cutting out?

Food, I think, is more difficult to break the 'addiction' to than many drugs, because you need to eat to live - it's policing what you eat that's the difficult part (and let's not get into all the misinformation and misdirection about what's 'good food').

[djm4]

Aside: I got a slight kick out of quoting 'I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that' back at Ben Goldacre at the Lib Dem fringe event on keeping libel laws out of science. I was, basically, agreeing with him, though, so I hope he forgave me - at any rate, I didn't spot any tweets about 'the annoying smug git with the beard who quotes my own catchphrases back at me'.

[rosenkavalier.livejournal.com]

'Abstinence is easier than temperance' (Seneca, if memory serves)

[purplerabbits.livejournal.com]

Yes, though if memory serves the book mostly uses quitting alcohol as an example, which may be wise given how notoriously hard smoking is to give up...

[djpsyche.livejournal.com]

Quitting smoking is quite easy when you give up alcohol. :/

Actually, the more I think about it (and I've given up drinking, too, which was a walk in the park compared to quitting smoking), quitting drinking is more like dieting than it is like quitting smoking. Because with both dieting and giving up alcohol, there are substitutes. With dieting, instead of that donut you eat an apple, but at least you have the option of eating SOMETHING. With alcohol, instead of a beer you order a soft drink. With smoking... well, there is no substitute. There's nothing else you can smoke instead when you get a craving for a cigarette. You just have to suffer.

[seph-hazard.livejournal.com]

For some people - I know a lot of light/social smokers who find it easy to go without if they don't have a drink. It wouldn't go that way for me - although I do smoke a bit more when I'm drinking, I have connected 'having a fag' with, oh, all sorts of things. After eating, with a hot drink, after sex, whenever I get off a bus/train or exit a non-smoking area or finish a class or wake up or am about to go to bed or am waiting for something to finish cooking or or or or or...

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lj_sucks_/]

Curiously, the report that got made into a TV show, about the ranking of the most dangerous drugs in the UK, put drinking above smoking, citing how difficult it was to avoid alcohol compared to cigarettes. I rarely even see someone smoking these days, whereas I'm frequently at social occasions where alcohol is there for the taking. Nobody ever says "Want to come for a smoke?" whereas people are always saying "Let's go for a drink".

(Of course, this probably depends greatly on social stratum, geographical location, etc.)

[yoyoangel.livejournal.com]

This is why I refer to Alan Carr's diet book as 'The Easy Way to Stop Eating'. He claims that the diet book (which I haven't read) uses the same principles as the smoking book (which I have) - but if it did, it would encourage people to stop eating entirely, which is probably not a good thing.

[seph-hazard.livejournal.com]

I *think* that I would have a better chance of intentionally losing some weight than I would of giving up smoking. I would find either so difficult as to be practically impossible, though, so it's pretty much a moot point.