wow look at all the comments. This really hit a nerve. In the forever war of image versus health, image has always won. We humans will torture and starve and pierce and shave our bodies to look like the latest ideal instead of opting for healthy. Probably, as some have pointed out, because we are more likely to get sex if we look like a societal ideal. Sex is a powerful motivator and our socialized ideals of beauty seem to form a fixed version of what is "good" into our brains that overrides "healthy" most of the time. It would be awfully nice if we could figure out what really is healthy and somehow make that our ideal.

The $100,000 question: do fat people enjoy looking at other fat people?

And if so: At what BMI do you start finding corpulence aesthetically pleasing?

Because there seem to be a whole lot of people screaming that Dan's opinion that muffin tops are unsightly, is an opinion, and not a fact, as Dan stated. While this is true, I have to wonder what percentage of people find fat rolls leaking out of I'll-fitting garments pleasing. Even the self proclaimed "chubby chasers" seem to prefer a body type that's more curvy than rotund. Big can be attractive to some, but lumpy and misshapen rarely (if ever!) is.

I'm sorry but the people whining that Dan's picking on them need to step back a minute. I spent the better part of my life being called ugly and having many assumptions made about who I am as a person because of that. Do I hold it against the people who were cruel? Actually, no. As I got older I realized (much like a lot of the people in the It Gets Better videos) that I can take control of how I feel about myself and I don't need to rely on the kindness of strangers for validation. Someone called me 'old & homely' this weekend and I told them that's a statement of fact not an insult.

It's ridiculous to be a grown up blaming another grown up for your lack of self esteem. There's tons of resources out there to help you with your self esteem that don't rely on you changing a thing other than your outlook. But you have to do the work. No one can make you feel better but you.

Lindy wasn't 'brave' for writing that post. She KNEW when she wrote it that people would come out of the woodwork to support her. She KNEW that Dan has a lot of detractors who don't want to take responsibility for themselves who are more than happy to rip him a new one for not being nice to them. And saying 'not taking responsibility' does not mean 'will not lose weight'. It means what it says 'take responsibility for yourself' period.

I just want to reiterate what many, many people have said if you actually read & listen to Dan, he cares about people. He cares about them enough to not worry whether people think he's nice or not.

TL;DR.

just kidding, i read it. but i wish i hadn't.

good work, dan. you can go sleep easy in your castle of moral superiority.
oh, but don't worry, you can always get away with failing to recognize your own privilege because you're a gay man and that makes you oh-so-oppressed.

@266 I just thought about it too

Ummm, this is really interesting:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/dining…

This i s what you get for trying to get the record straight. Bigotry is only where people blame others for their own issues with or without realizing it. And on Fox News. Thumps up, Dan! Whatta reply. Though I'm sure you'll get more shit cause of this, but hey! Can't please everybody.

@408 "It would be awfully nice if we could figure out what really is healthy and somehow make that our ideal".

Well, "healthy" is hard to define in any real way, since you pay the price of obesity down the road rather than as a young/young-ish person, but "fit" less so. Fit is functional. You can define that empirically however you like - so fast, so strong, so much endurance, agility, any combination of the above.

The thing is that these correlate decently with BMI/weight. Not perfectly, and certainly not linearly, but decently enough. Look at the women who do crossfit at my gym - unlike a "normal" gym, not is size 0 or 2 or even 4 - but nobody's a 14 or 16 or 18, either. Thin-ness is antithetical to the whole exercise, but overweight would just stand in the way of doing what they're trying to do.

I think that your suggestion's a lost cause. Not because it's not a good idea. Because it is a good idea. Having a benchmark for fitness and health would require us to examine ourselves and find ourselves lacking. Not exactly something we're queueing up for, is it?

@371:
"You are watching a film, and out of nowhere a character does or says something homophobic. It's a painful shock to the system, and you try to let it roll over you, but you feel angry and ashamed anyway."

Well, you were addressing Dan here, but as a fellow queer can I just say that this isn't how I or a lot of out gay people would respond, thanks. I hope you don't think all queer people are this easily bruised? We would not get a lot done in our daily lives if we were, you know, because there's a hell of a lot of stray homophobia out there. Here's something I would have identified with more:

"You are watching a film, and out of nowhere a character does or says something homophobic. It's annoying, and depending on who says it, what's said, and how big a deal it is, you either roll your eyes and mock for a moment, or change the channel and have a little rant about it. Then you get on with your evening."

Yes, prejudice exerts pressure on individuals and relationships, look at the gay mental-health statistics, etc etc. But it comes in big and small servings (you realise queer people face more serious obstacles than prejudiced jokes by TV characters, right?), and most of us learn to distinguish and to save our energy for the bigger, more important fights. I'm not even going to attempt to parallel that to your point about fat acceptance. Just wanted to speak from my own experience and point out that this particular example just didn't ring true to me.

Hello. Margaret Fucking Mitchell told the story of Gone With the Wind in fewer words than your post contained. Seriously, Miss O'Hara, do you feel better after that rant?

Rational, normal people get your point & they get hers. But these two posts (yours & hers) besides being largely shit drivel themselves have inspired some of the most shit drivel comments I've ever seen.

After reading the comments to the two posts, I really want to hold a bunch of the commenters down, shove cheeseburgers down their throat, and taze their anus.

I don't think I've ever seen so much backpedaling in a single post. Dan, I love you, but I'm not buying it. Sorry.

The most telling thing is this; you get accused of having a LOT of prejudices and bigotry. This is the only one you get fucking defensive about...while all the while continuing to post stories about how horrible fatness is that you totally don't mean as having anything to do with fat shaming.

@394 ... Wrong, wrong, wrong. You cannot set up this false equivalency between gay people and fat people simply by asserting that both conditions are viewed as undesirable and then shouting in all caps: WHO WOULD CHOOSE IT?

They're just not the same. Think about it in reverse ... When the right-wing hater says that being gay is a choice, one of the most common replies to turn the question around and ask the wingnut if he chose to be straight. Usually, this induces sputtering and fumbling, sometimes a remark or two about choosing to only participate in heterosexual behavior, but when you pin him down on orientation and not behavior, he has nothing to say. He did not choose to be straight.

But what about fitness vs. fatness? These things just "happen" to people? No! Ask anyone who is fit, and most of them will be able to explain their choices to you, which have led to their current physical condition. I do not understand how this idea that our choices show on our bodies is controversial. Do we not all -- all of us in bodies -- notice these choices (both the good and the bad) day in and day out?

Right now, I am eating a mango and reading Slog before work, having finished my Wednesday morning swim. Will I be able to tell a difference in my body tomorrow vs. the weeks when I've gone on a Tuesday night drinking binge, skipped the swim, and ate an egg sandwich for breakfast? Fuck yeah.

Who among us doesn't experience this ALL THE TIME? Choices matter.

P.S. Your detection of a "whiff of disgust"? ... Real? Imagined? Relevant? How exactly is Dan supposed to defend himself from an allegation of a "whiff"? And should he have to? Honestly.

I choose to work out almost everyday. I choose to eat a balanced diet. I choose to only occasionally eat excessively high calorie foods. I could just as easily choose to sit around eating bacon cheese burgers, fries, cupcakes, sodas, etc. everyday. Those foods are tasty, and easy to eat, but I know I don't need 3500 calories a day. I don't feel I must sate every slight hunger pang with a bag of Doritos or a Snickers. I can save my appetite for healthy meal. I don't by any means starve myself. I eat about 2200 calories a day. These are all choices that I make.

I am gay, and there's not a choice I could make in the world to be straight. I do choose to not sleep with every guy who passes by. I choose to use condoms. I could just as easily choose to go to sex clubs, and have unprotected sex. These things would be pleasurable I'm sure, but I know that I don't want STDs. I don't feel I must sate every sexual urge with some stranger in a bathroom. I can save my horniness for appropriate partners at appropriate times. I don't by any means sexually starve myself. I have and enjoy sex. These are also choices that I make.

I think I'm just tired of this now. In general, not just on the Slog.

You can talk about being ashamed of being fat. You can talk about how you're not bigoted against fat people. You know what? I don't give a shit.

People have biases. People have hated me for lots of reasons over the years. Fat is usually at the bottom of the list*. And as I have learned over the years there is crap-all I can do about people hating me for superficial reasons.

You know what I do about those people? I ignore them. They aren't worth my time or attention. Or if they are in a position of power over me, I get away from them ASAP (or they'll make sure I'm gone anyway). There will always be judgmental assholes in the world, trying to shove their opinions down your throat. They generally don't know crap-all about your life.

I'd discuss this at length à la the above post, but it's time to go to the track and race-walk past the skinny women out for their stroll. The ones who used to eye me with distaste, but now cheer me on. Because, you know, people can't EVER change their minds about other people, or admit that their superficial first impressions had nothing to do with realities.

__________________

*Yes, I am fat, but no, I don't consider it a right or something to love, because being fat makes me feel physically horrible. I don't consider being fat a reason for self-loathing, I consider it a pain in the ass, and a side effect of successive injuries that deeply impacted my mobility and undiagnosed hypothyroidism. The latter corrected and the injuries rehabbed, the fat is coming off. My doctor apologizes for not believing my repeated statements of not understanding why the weight wasn't coming off and her dismissing me as not trying hard enough. Because all fat people want to remain fat and have no self control, apparently - except when they do.

Sorry, Lindy, but somebody who thinks that boiling water poured on a man's penis is "hilarious" -- and then adds insult to injury by referring to the dick in question as very small three different times in only one paragraph -- hasn't really got a moral high ground to stand on vis-a-vis respect for others in print. You've gone all noble on Savage for, in your view, dissing heavy people. What would your reaction have been if he had found, say, pouring boiling water on a breasts to have been hilarious and reveled in the fact that the injured titties were small?

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/penis…

@426 "Right now, I am eating a mango and reading Slog before work, having finished my Wednesday morning swim. Will I be able to tell a difference in my body tomorrow vs. the weeks when I've gone on a Tuesday night drinking binge, skipped the swim, and ate an egg sandwich for breakfast? Fuck yeah."

@427 "I choose to work out almost everyday. I choose to eat a balanced diet. I choose to only occasionally eat excessively high calorie foods. I could just as easily choose to sit around eating bacon cheese burgers, fries, cupcakes, sodas, etc. everyday. Those foods are tasty, and easy to eat, but I know I don't need 3500 calories a day. I don't feel I must sate every slight hunger pang with a bag of Doritos or a Snickers. I can save my appetite for healthy meal. I don't by any means starve myself. I eat about 2200 calories a day. These are all choices that I make. "

Good for the two of you. What about people who choose to do all of that and still can't lose weight? What about people whose lives do not allow for 1 hour of daily exercise or careful meal planning? Very few fat people get that way from sitting on their asses eating cheeseburgers every day (some people do, but that is not the norm) -- most get that way eating normal looking amounts of food and getting normal looking amounts of exercise. It only takes a slight calorie surplus every day to start putting on weight, and some people's metabolisms are constantly changing and shifting the goalposts. I have a son who will not put on any fat no matter what I feed him. Is it so ridiculous to think it might also work in reverse? When will people get it into their head that what works for them does not necessarily work for others? People actually are different.

You are also missing the entire point that not everyone has the same priorities as you. Do you really think it is reasonable to ask complete strangers to completely reorganize their lives and experience considerable discomfort just to keep random Judgy McJudgersons from thinking "Ew"?

Ok, I sufficiently believe Dan doesn't hate fatties. I changed my mind, there. I never believed he was the enemy, though. Though it doesn't mean I don't think he's unskillful at times with his use of words about his pet obsessions--the occupational hazard of an acerbic advice columnist, I guess.

For the record, Iowa (27.7) isn't much fatter than Washington (26.3). If we are using the rounding that we learned in grade school, that you can get 30% for both states. I sucked at math, so I could say it is 25% too. Regardless, 2/3 of the states are above 25%.

Please don't imply that Iowa is far more obese than Washington. It isn't true.

433, The vast majority of overweight and obese people are so because they eat too many calories. Lindy should be eating less than 2000 calories, but from her writings, food reviews etc, I bet she takes in in excess of 2500 calories a day. Many people tend to not realize the number of calories they consume. (Some get indignant at the suggestion that they keep track of such things.) Fat is not produced from nothing. It requires unused calories. (Don't let calories from fat vs. carbs confuse you. It doesn't matter from where the excess calories come. A fat free food that has the same calories as the regular version is no better.)

If a person watches an hour of TV, playing video games, internet surfing, etc. that is time that could be spent working out instead. Too many people come home from their desk jobs, and plop in front of the TV or computer. I don't work out at a gym. I do it at home with a couple of hand and ankle weights. Take a walk on a lunch break. Most people could find 30 minutes a day. It doesn't have to be 30 minute consecutively. Do several 10 minute workouts. Remember that working out does not allow you to eat what ever you want. If you burn 200-300 calories in a workout, a candy bar will negate your efforts. While virtually everyone will see health benefits from working out, diet, more than lack of exercise is what causes people to be overweight.

Wow. I'm several inches shorter and several pounds heavier than Ms. West. I have struggled for years, and am struggling even now, to overcome my constant desire to eat everything in sight. It's horrible and painful, and some days it seems impossible. But I have never gotten my feelings hurt over anything I've seen Dan Savage say about fat. I agree with most of it actually. I really don't understand what the big deal is here. I think many of the people that respond in the comments of these posts are much more cruel than Dan has ever been.

I think it's weird that people are trying to tell him what subjects he can and can't blog about. If you are sensitive and can't even handle the topic of obesity being brought up by a skinny person then skip the posts about it - just like I skip the "every child needs a mother and father" posts to keep from having nightmares.

@431: Very good catch.

When mommy and daddy stop fighting, can we get back to hate-speech directed at Teapublicans? I'm too close to take sides here, but the ultra right? I'm miles away from their walk of shame, so snark away!!

I guess I should be posting this on Lindy's rant instead of Dan's, but I can't read through another "I am fat, hear me roar" post without gagging. Lindy may not like it, her supporters on this thread may not like it, nobody on earth may like it, but the fact remains, Dan is right on this one. Fat isn't a disease, it isn't an addiction. It's just fat. Eat less, eat healthier, move your butt ocasionally and you can lose it. And yes, I know what I'm talking about.

I used to be seriously overweight; in fact, I would say I probably made Lindy look small. Today, I'm 132 pounds, which for my height, is slim. I didn't get there by spending hours writing about some blogger who pointed out that fat people are unhealthy. I didn't get there by raging at airlines for wanting fat people to buy an extra seat. I didn't get there by trying to deny the obvious. I got there by EATING LESS AND EXCERCISING, and so can anyone else.

It's easier to rant, Lindy. It's easier to leave comments on a blog post and deny the truth. It's easier to blame genes or whatever--I blamed a thyroid condition which was partially to blame for my weight gain, although not as much as my love of bbq and cake. But blaming and ranting doesn't move your ass. Use that energy and go take a walk, go ride a bike, go for a swim. I lost mine, with a metabolism sunk through the floor, and so can you. It won't come off in a week or a month or even a year (it took me 2 1/2), but it will come off. Ranting at Dan and everyone else who makes honest statements like "what you're doing is unhealthy" will not budge an inch.

Dan, you are awesome! Lindy took your comments way out of context. And if she is so proud and unashamed of her body, then why did she feel shameful reading your blog? If she was truly confident, she wouldn't need to defend her confidence- especially when she was UNPROVOKED!!!!! Really, she just wants to make you the enemy so she doesn't need to get her shit together and lose the weight!

@ 406 - You obviously haven't been following my posts.

I'm a CHUBBY CHASER, idiot! I am exclusively sexually aroused by OVERWEIGHT MEN, so your whole "It is not the responsibility of others to fit your idea of how they should look" is totally irrelevent.

It merely proves that you have nothing to back up your earlier statement that being fat is no more of a choice than being gay.

And by the way, if I say "There are things you can do to stop being fat", it doesn't actually mean that you will succeed. The point is the capacity to change your state.

And in the case of men, no, I don't want them to get all bony or buff. Personally, I'd much prefer that they keep 30-50 extra pounds. But it's up to them. It's their body. I realize that other people's health is more important than my sexual desires. The question is: do YOU realize that people's health and well-being are more important than your overly sensitive ego?

Now, if you're talking about gayness, well no matter what I do, I will not lose my gayness for a while, even if it's only to gain it back later. My gayness will not diminish one iota. There is no pill I can take, no exercise I can do to make it go away (see: Rekers, Haggard, etc.). Changing my "diet" of porn won't work: women do not attract me, never have and never will.

YOU CANNOT COMPARE THE TWO, and it's pathetic of you to have tried.

Is that clear enough now?

Amen, Dan! I have several overweight friends, in fact more of my friends are overweight than aren't. I love all of them dearly. They obsess way more about their weight than I do, because I honestly don't usually think about their weight at all until they bring it up first. One morbidly obese friend posts links on Twitter and Facebook to every obscure pro-fat, anti-thin article she can find. In fact, she's how I found Lindy's blog. Like I said, she brought it up first. She's made it very clear that I should not complain when I have half another person's body taking up my space on an airplane, and that she believes I should eat with reckless abandon, and that she believes exercise is a complete waste of time. Fine, she can believe whatever she wants to, but it doesn't mean I have to like being squished for a 3-hour flight.

A while back when I decided to lose weight, I was shocked at my overweight friends' reactions. One was aactually distraught that I didn't "love" myself anymore. Hello? Deciding to get healthy meant I no longer loved myself? Another began to constantly comment on how ugly she thought thin women are. And several of them have done their best to get me to eat unhealthy food, even bringing it over when they come to visit me and leaving it. It all goes in the trash, because I'm determined.

Lindy's blog reminds me of those friends. I do feel badly for her and them. Not because they're fat, but because they seem to hate the rest of the world because they're fat. Lindy says she wants to change her body more than anything else in the world. She lost my sympathy at that point, because obviously that's not true. If she really wants that more than anything else in the world, she would do something aboout it. What she really wants is to be able to eat as much as she wants and exercise as little as she wants, and to have the world validate her choices. Since it doesn't, she's told it to fuck off. Hell, yeah, being fit is a lot of work. If it were easy, almost everyone would be fit.

Spot on, Dan. I agree 100% with your response.

Sometimes Fat Acceptance just works to keep people fat when they could be otherwise. My family is pudgy. They claim to be pro-eating healthy but now that I've lost a good amount of weight (20+ lbs in 2 yrs) they're always trying to get me to eat more or saying that I've "lost enough", implying I had better not lose more. I went from a BMI of slightly into the Overweight range to 20, in the middle of the Normal range. For the first time since junior high, I almost feel "not fat" now in my late 20s. So I much prefer the Glad You're Not Fat Anymore Acceptance.

Two issues here:

1. Weight/body image/shame-bullying/health/genetics/societal norms/respect/etc.

2. Lindy vs. Dan / Dan vs. Lindy

Not the same topics - totally different - causing all kinds of confusion - bloating this thread.

P.S. - I'm with respect, and I'm with Dan.

I wanted more from Dan but am not surprised by the response. It's too bad he can't hear what people are saying about how his words have made them feel. It's just all about him - about what a great supporter of fat people he's been and how he has been fat and still feels like the fat kid, so he couldn't possibly be in any way responsible for saying anything anti-fat. All of these people who feel he has said hateful and hurtful things, they're all delusional. There's no grace or acknowledgement or empathy in this post (or any of the prior, no comments allowed posts).

Dan's response is pretty much spot-on. I've met so many fat people in my life who were looking for someone to vilify so that they could somehow defeat that person and thereby overcome their issues with themselves. Lindy has constructed a narrative in which Dan is Darth Vader, and she's the rotund Luke Skywalker of Dignity.

Seriously, now that this girl has learned to love herself, she needs to get over herself. This sort of projection of her own inner struggle onto Dan isn't just rude, it's embarrassing.

353 -
you are a smoker? then yes, you are disgusting. gross. i move away from people like you in public. i don't inhale when you walk by. i'm absolutely TERRIFIED of sitting next to you on a plane. being trapped in an elevator with you is maddening. i think you are predisposed to litter. i think you make poor lifestyle choices and it angers me that people like you drive up health insurance costs for us all. sometimes i even pity you. i would never ever date you.
there. maybe you still don't feel shamed. oh well.

no fat chicks.

Hi,

Yeah you are,

Buh-bye now

Hi,

Yeah you are,

Buh-bye now

"When you do have time to respond to Lindy: note how often these people (LW included) use anecdotal evidence and generalize to the Whole World about it. She cannot lose weight dieting, so it's not possible. Then you might talk about our family."

You and your brother obviously missed Lindy's point - she doesn't need your approval about her body or your advice on how to lose weight.

WHO'S projecting internalizing hatred of themselves for being fat?

WHO'S projecting internalized hatred of themselves for being fat?

Dan, this post just comes off as petty, catty and *you* sound like the oversensitive one. I know it sucks to get called out for bigotry, but sorry, you are a freaking bigot and your protestations to the contrary sound a lot to me like my old racist uncle screaming "I HAVE BLACK FRIENDS!!!" It would have been nice if you had used Lindy's (totally NOT that attacking) post as a time for some self reflection. I mean, seriously, you get this criticism a lot, maybe it is time to think of where it could possibly be coming from, if it has any roots in reality (hint: IT DOES).

@448, thanks for trying your best to balance things out. Now I can go to the next item on my checklist: I need some random strangers to call me out on the street.

Actually, it's a little too cold to stand around waiting to be insulted. Maybe I could continue the experiment in the June?

Four hundred! That's how much I weigh!

I don't know how comment numbers work. Point is: fuck you.

awwww, all you stranger staffers are so smart, decent, lovely. yes to all of you.

Dan. Your writing is crystal clear. Just wanted to share that.

Brevity is the hallmark of a winning argument. (2,464 to 1,052)

Dan, i read 2 minutes of your boring treatise. pretty clearly to me Lindy calling you as a fatist faggot asshole has hit a nerve. i read the piece. i was offended. i was offended a few weeks back when you berated a minimally sexual person. from memory you flippantly speculated some worst case scenario based on no facts. it smacked of pre-conceived bias. and seemed perhaps just another example of your propensity to hold your view above all others. stridently

i get that you've used shock to wake people up. but i feel like the act is old. and counter productive. i'm an Aussie who discovered you when in Seattle a couple of years back. i was instantly impressed with your insight and utterly pragmatic opinions. but as i've followed you further, the Savage approach just begins to grate. and seem tired. like some of you're recent responses. and this diatribe telling Lindy that you weren't being a cunt when patently you were, says to me that it is time to take a break, Dan

i know you're popular and famous, but try not to let it spill over into conceit, Dan. because just personally, i'll accept advice about the most sensitive and personal aspects of my life from someone who is positive overall, not some snarky bitch who doesn't give a fuck and will exploit people for a bit of drama in his TIRED OLD COLUMN

Dan, i read 2 minutes of your boring treatise. pretty clearly to me Lindy calling you as a fatist faggot asshole has hit a nerve. i read the piece. i was offended. i was offended a few weeks back when you berated a minimally sexual person. from memory you flippantly speculated some worst case scenario based on no facts. it smacked of pre-conceived bias. and seemed perhaps just another example of your propensity to hold your view above all others. stridently

i get that you've used shock to wake people up. but i feel like the act is old. and counter productive. i'm an Aussie who discovered you when in Seattle a couple of years back. i was instantly impressed with your insight and utterly pragmatic opinions. but as i've followed you further, the Savage approach just begins to grate. and seem tired. like some of you're recent responses. and this diatribe telling Lindy that you weren't being a cunt when patently you were, says to me that it is time to take a break, Dan

i know you're popular and famous, but try not to let it spill over into conceit, Dan. because just personally, i'll accept advice about the most sensitive and personal aspects of my life from someone who is positive overall, not some snarky bitch who doesn't give a fuck and will exploit people for a bit of drama in his TIRED OLD COLUMN

@ 465 - Nobody forces you to read it. It's obviously not "tired" to quite a bunch of people.

@ 467 - popularity is no indicator of quality. by that logic Two and a Half Men is as fresh as a daisy.

you're right, (thankfully) no-one forces me to read Dan's column. i doubt i'll read much of it again. to me Dan playing/being an asshole regularly gets in the way of and obfuscates what is otherwise often brilliant and potentially helpful advice. which after a while is just irritating and exhausting.

i try and avoid situations that make me upset. but i did once love Dan, so my 1st and last comment on these pages was pretty much a goodbye note. just in case Dan cares what anyone else thinks. please don't take it personally Ricardo. i fully endorse your right to read the same old thing over and over again

@ 468 - We weren't discussing quality as such, but "tiredness". I believe they're two different concepts.

For instance, you can repeat something until it gets "tired", but if it's a sound argument, well-developed and all, its quality can't be debated.

And I wasn't taking this personally (I'm not Dan, so why should I?), just stating the obvious... which you seemed to have missed.

On the other hand, your need to write a goodbye note to someone who has no idea who you are halfway around the world does suggest that you are taking Dan's behaviour/answer/attitude a tad too personally.

Just saying.

Dan, back in 2004 when you proudly made fat-hating statements in your column, I responded with these words and you printed them:

"FAT!SO? says fuck you! It saddens me to know that you continue to cling to your fat-hating prejudice. The same attempts were made to stuff queers back in the closet, just as you are now attempting to stuff proud fat rebels (and our low-rise jeans) back in our closet. Fuck you! You're not required to like us or look at us or fuck us, but you are required to stay the hell out of the way of our liberation! My health is not in danger from my weight. (I eat right, exercise, and enjoy excellent health.) However, your health may be endangered if you persist in promoting weight-based prejudice. (Really, all that stress every time you step on the scale... it can't be good for you!)"

You have written nothing in the intervening years to make me view you differently. From what you've written here, you clearly carry a heavy burden of fat shame. (Not surprising. In my travels around the world giving weight diversity talks, I find that people of all sizes carry incredible amounts of the stuff. Also, gay men's culture can be especially fat-hating.)

You also completely fail to understand that your weight/health views are not at all uncontested or even particularly accurate. Here's the primary, science-101-style critique that Health At Every Size medical experts apply to the "obesity" epidemic and fat=doom beliefs: correlation does not prove causation. The obvious insight from this fact is that there could be any number of confounding variables that could explain the rather weak correlations between weight and morbidity/mortality. (If we assume that correlation proves causation, then we believe cold weather causes turkey deaths in November despite the confounding, even causal variable: Thanksgiving.) The CDC's lead statistician on weight/health data, Katherine Flegal, makes this point in a recent paper published in JAMA — that confounding variables like stress, discrimination, dieting history, and fitness level could explain weight-based correlations with morbidity/mortality. Flegal also published in JAMA in 2006 the news that rates of so-called "obesity" have stopped increasing. (http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/295/13/…) I don't imagine such data will diminish your eagerness to hate-monger about the "obesity" epidemic. I don't imagine data, in general, can undo prejudice. Your statements about health are stereotype, not science. (And yes, it's a prevalent stereotype, even among so-called scientists — you've noticed how the "obesity" scientists are well-paid consultants of the $59.7 billion/year weight-loss industry.)

Dan, I have met you in person and discussed these points with you. (Remember, you tried to research gluttony at a fat pride gathering? And if that isn't proof of your deeply held weight prejudices, what is!?!) If I were Lindy, I would not enjoy having you as a coworker. I dislike being around people who insist on carrying fatphobia and prejudice, as you do. (Kinda like I dislike being around homophobes, racists, sexists...) Because of your beliefs and statements, you're the sort of person I would never socialize with or share a meal with or publicly link to in a social network or, well...like. I only engage with you because I hope it serves my purpose of confronting and ending weight-based stereotype, prejudice, and discrimination (in your readers, if not in you).

I applaud Lindy for publicly and proudly and effectively raising the argument for weight diversity and Health At Every Size.

@474

I think you're done thumping this straw man. Really. I like your writing, Marilyn. But this discussion's really devolved. Reasonable accommodation is worth fighting for. Fat bias in employment is worth fighting against. Social acceptance is worth fighting for. Fighting for social benefit, or advantage rather than accommodation, or to change social mores, or to play games with data, or to slide the goalposts ... are those worth fighting for? Really?

Fitness at every size is a laudable goal. (And one that I would personally benefit from). While it's true that fitness is a stronger exploratory variable than weight when studying excess mortality, they're not independent of each other.

I personally find it considerably harder to stay fit when I am heavier than when I am not, and I don't think that I'm exceptional in this respect. For example, being north of 250 and running long or hard makes for sore joints; doing chin-ups (yes, I can do chin-ups) or lifting weights until failure makes for painful DOMS. Based on these and many other observations, I really have to believe that the price of fitness gets higher as weight does.

That's one of the elephants in the room; we discuss fitness and health and weight in the abstract, as if we could separate one from the other, but when it comes down to individual situations, they're thoroughly tangled. That's why I support you in fighting against fat bias and for accommodation - because Not Everyone Can Pay That Price. I can't ask anyone to pay that price. Clearly I can't pay that price. But I can't support your position here.

The other elephant in the room is Dan's metier. He is an advice columnist. When he answers a question related to weight, 99 times out of 100 (or maybe more) it's a variation on: "my sex partner won't sleep with me since I gained weight", "I don't want to sleep with my sex partner since he/she gained weight", or "I'm obese, but I'm attracted to Victoria's Secret/Calvin Klein models. Yet, they will not sleep with me. What's wrong"?

The answers are inevitably: "talk to him/her and see what you can work out", "talk to him/her and see what you can work out", and "is this really what you want, and good luck with that". And those are the RIGHT answers, because he's dealing with individuals, and individuals have to work out the sticky points between principles, wants, and needs.

"Blame it on society's bias against fat people" is a wrong answer - not incorrect. It's entirely correct. It's still wrong - it's the right answer, but not to that question. Blaming Dan for anti-fat bias is a wrong answer, too; he didn't create it, he's not promoting it, he can't eliminate it, and he'd be wrong to ignore power imbalances driven by it. Clearly you're not blind to them; why should he pretend?

According to all sorts of research studies, people who exercise regularly (in ways that aren't physically damaging, obviously) are healthier than people who don't. My friend Linda Bacon, PhD, a nutrition professor and Health At Every Size expert, tells me the difference in weight between groups of people who exercise regularly and those who don't is about 10 pounds. Exercise is a magic pill for fitness and health, not for weight conformity or thin supremacism.

I notice personals ads have a common refrain: No BBWs. No offense, it's just my preference. I disagree. I don't think it's a preference, I think it's a prejudice. When lots of people find it impossible to imagine that even one member of an entire demographic might be hot, then that's not about attraction, that's about prejudice (literally, pre-judging). The answer is for fat people to screen out bigots and reward the cool kids who can see hotness in all shapes and sizes with lots of yummy, mutually enjoyable sex.

Dan - I have loved you forever, but I read words you wrote today that tell me you just Don't Get It. These are your words: "Beer-gutted, love-handled, hairy-backed men shouldn't go shirtless in summer. Or any other season."

You talk a good line about tolerance, and then say shit like that. Now I think you can go fuck your skinny-ass self and die. Nothing else you have to say is of any interest to me, unless it's "I'm sorry."

I'm curious. I understand that one quote was out of context (although if you find even a skinny girl's tiny bump of flesh icky...), and you were commenting more on people wearing what flatters their body. But I didn't quite understand the connection beyond that when you went on talking.

You said, "I'm a sex-and-relationship columnist; I could no more avoid questions about bodies and health and size than I could avoid questions about blowjobs and assfucking and cunnilingus." I disagree. Sex and relationships. You're not a healthy-living writer. You're not a society issues writer. You're a living-and-interacting-well writer.

When it comes to sex and relationships, questions about bodies might be about body image, health might be about staying healthy while interacting or how to talk to someone about a health concern, and size might be, again, an image thing (for example, a very tall person with a very short person also might have issues). But who would ask a relationships writer for health advice?

My guess is you've expanded your domain. After all, society is one giant relationship, right? Wrong. If you're a writer on overall social issues, you can feel free to comment on how people live. But you might want to define yourself better.

Or, you at least might want to actually model appropriate interpersonal relationships and communication, rather than knee-jerk angry list-rants.

Oh, yeah, and "see, I'm sitting nicely next to a fat person and even shared my NYT with them!" sounds a lot like saying "look, I'm sitting next to this [insert term for some generally marginalized/ickified group here] and not recoiling in horror - look, we just talked a little, and we accidentally touched while sharing an armrest and I'm not running to wash my arm!" Just in case you weren't sure.

I don't care what your opinion is, but I think you need to look carefully and see if you're actually giving the full impression that that is your opinion. An editor might help with that.

Let's work to stop bullying!

...By bullying fat people.

Oh, and someone look up anorexia clinics in Baltimore, to help out poor ol' Rib... I mean, Rob.

Dan
I love you and your column but as a former fat teenager who was bullied, my heart is with Lindy. I would be really interested to read a column of yours in which you discuss not so much fat but the current fascistic standard of beauty which all of us, male female, gay straight, whatever, are subjected to. Come on Dan. Stand up for us not-pretty-people.

What comment #1 said.

I liked both articles for various reasons -- they both made me laugh and also made me wince. Overall, the same thought kept coming to me: why is everything taken so seriously in this world? What happened to letting things go, ignoring negativity, and leading a happier existence in the face of adversity?

Fat or not, I think the ultimate point is that the one person who really cares at the end of the day is the individual. We beat ourselves up and then project it out into the world -- onto ourselves, onto others, onto EVERYTHING. Our mindsets must simply be bent and broken. If a person absolutely loved and accepted themselves, they would be unshakeable, unstoppable.

We are ALL wasting time pointing fingers at others, when the real boogeyman is inside of us. Instead of trolling, gawking, squabbling, and generally pushing more bullshit out into the open, why not stop for a minute and meditate on what will better serve our mental health, individually and globally.

You should be aware that a mirror has two sides; a reflection can be deceiving when you allow emotions, mainly fear, to guide your response.

I liked both articles for various reasons -- they both made me laugh and also made me wince. Overall, the same thought kept coming to me: why is everything taken so seriously in this world? What happened to letting things go, ignoring negativity, and leading a happier existence in the face of adversity?

Fat or not, I think the ultimate point is that the one person who really cares at the end of the day is the individual. We beat ourselves up and then project it out into the world -- onto ourselves, onto others, onto EVERYTHING. Our mindsets must simply be bent and broken. If a person absolutely loved and accepted themselves, they would be unshakeable, unstoppable.

We are ALL wasting time pointing fingers at others, when the real boogeyman is inside of us. Instead of trolling, gawking, squabbling, and generally pushing more bullshit out into the open, why not stop for a minute and meditate on what will better serve our mental health, individually and globally.

You should be aware that a mirror has two sides; a reflection can be deceiving when you allow emotions, mainly fear, to guide your response.

@488 Brandifly117: So true, and beautifully well said.
The mirror indeed, has two sides. As someone who has been
various sizes throughout life, I am blessed with finally having
found peace.