_{Do you really think that this kid needs a better self image}

_{more than he needs exercise and proper nutrition?}

This morning I read one of the absolutely most absurd posts I’ve ever seen on OS, aside from a few rightwing nutjob postings.  In her post “On Obama's Campaign Against Childhood Obesity”  Kim Brittingham goes off on our First Lady for her campaign to end childhood obesity.  Apparently, saving children’s lives sounds a lot like child abuse to Ms. Brittingham.

For the record, Ms. Brittingham, Mrs. Obama did not say that she loathes fat kids or fat adults either, for that matter.  She said that it is an issue dear to her heart and that she has “made it our goal to put a stop to the challenge of childhood obesity within a generation, so children who are born today grow up at a healthy weight."

I don’t for one minute deny that society has an obsession with thinness that has caused a lot of harm, from being behind all kinds of eating disorders to social phobias to a variety of prejudices.  Prejudices are wrong, as is self-loathing.  It is a wonderful ideal to teach children that acceptance is right but none of that means that it is good or healthy in any way to be obese.  It just plain is not healthy and there is no way to spin that fact to make it otherwise.

In her sadistic attack on my poor wife, (whose Facebook comment I posted – the poor wife did not ask to be injected into this debate), Ms. Brittingham says “As long as you continue to crack that whip on yourself and everybody else in this harsh, harsh world, you'll never know if deeper contentment (and therefore, more profound health) is EVER possible.
Children, however, deserve the chance to find out if acceptance works.
Who are you to get in their way?”

Wow.  That’s a lotta projection and assumption toward someone that you don’t know at all and it wreaks of self-loathing.  Ever heard of projection?

If you feel good about yourself in all your overweight splendor, good on you, Kim.  But just who are you to tell kids that they shouldn’t eat right, get exercise and try to be healthy?  I can’t even imagine how much harm you are doing when you claim that one can be “more profoundly healthy” through obesity.

The simple truth is that we no longer know any kind of reasonable limits in America today.  It is virtually impossible to find anything worth eating at our fast food outlets and the pickings aren’t much better at full service restaurants.  That’s before we “super-sized” it and before we “super-sized the super-size”.

The grocery store shelves are stuffed with empty carbs and sugar flavored sugar, deep fried in fat and then dusted in sugar, right next to the isle of overly-salted carbs.  It’s garbage and it simply has no business going into our bodies.

I’ve been obese most of my life.  I’ve had high blood pressure for almost all of my adult life.  I’ve had Type II Diabetes for most of a decade to go along with my coronary artery disease, for which I received four stents seven years ago. 

I’m not going to get into how I got that way here but I will address that in a future post.  For now, suffice it to say that growing up at home, I did not learn how to eat, did not learn what was appropriate to eat and I did not learn what constituted an appropriate serving.  I didn’t get anywhere near enough exercise.  A decade ago, I reached my high weight, which was close to 40 lbs more than I weigh now.

My last Dr. visit is what prompted me to change.  I was told that the medication I was taking for my diabetes was not getting the job done and that it was time to go on insulin.  I had a long conversation with a friend who is on insulin, in which I learned all about the different types of insulin and delivery systems.  I decided that I was not going to go that route and I joined a gym the next day.

It’s been 2 months now since making that change and I can tell you the results have been remarkable.  I always knew that eating right and exercising were the right things to do but until I experienced it for myself, I had no idea as to just what a profound difference proper nutrition and exercise make.  I can no longer imagine living any other way and for the life of me, I don’t know why I didn’t do this years ago.  Maybe I had Ms. Kim whispering in my ear that if I changed, I must hate myself.

For the record, even at my peak weight and my most gluttonous (and don’t buy the lie that gluttony isn’t involved for most obese people), I never loathed myself.  I didn’t make this change out of self-loathing as has been suggested.  I did it because I loved myself enough to want to be healthy, to want to live many more disease and symptom and pain free years.  My desire to be healthier is really kind of the opposite of self-loathing.

I’ll talk more in upcoming posts about the specifics of my change in lifestyle but here’s the message we should all understand: the idea that you can find “deeper contentment (and therefore, more profound health)” through self-acceptance than through exercise and proper nutrition is just plain unadulterated bullshit.

Good on you if you like yourself and have a healthy self-image.  That does not change the simple fact that it is healthier to practice proper nutrition and get some exercise. 

Mrs. Obama may not succeed in her lofty goal to wipe out childhood obesity within a generation but bringing this serious issue to the forefront of our public discourse is absolutely a right and proper thing to do.  We have to start somewhere.  The outcry by head-in-the-sand “activists” like Ms. Brittingham only serve to illustrate the obstacles that will have to be overcome before we can make real headway on this serious problem.