"1 law to a Perfect Body"

I know that I recently did a blog on fatphobia and sizism, but let's be honest: we all know it's not going away any time soon. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm pretty sick and tired of seeing weight loss ads everywhere I go. I was recently reading an article by Sam Harris on beliefnet and I saw a version of the ad you see to the left. I can hear the assholes now: "you wouldn't be offended if you weren't so fat". It's times like that when I'm glad I have thin friends who are just as outspoken against sizism and the focus on body image as I am. 

Firstly, fat people are fat for a variety of reasons, but secondly, not a single one of those reasons is your business. Let's assume that what every thin person says about every fat person is true: that we just shovel food in our faces. My question would be: so what? Thin people are allowed to shovel food with no one batting an eye- some people may even find it endearing or entertaining. But should someone with a much slower metabolism do the same, they are looked at with disdain, disgust, and judgment.  So my first question to these haters is why are we not allowed to enjoy the same lifestyle that you are? 

The unintelligent retort tends to be "because it makes you fat!" but again I ask.. so what? The only reason this is a problem is because of assholes like you! If people were allowed to just be their natural sizes or whatever size they chose to be then there wouldn't even be an argument here. Okay naturally thin person who eats a lot and watches TV all day, you don't want to sleep with me. I get that.. I'm not attracted to all people either. I'm generally not attracted to thin people and I'm never attracted to extremely thin people, but I never degrade them or make them feel bad about themselves for being thin. Other people want to sleep with me- other people have slept with me, so it's obviously not a problem in my life. Combine that with the fact that I'm likely healthier than you are and you don't' have a single argument to back you other than your lack of attraction. If we got rid of everyone in the world that everyone didn't find attractive, how many people would we be left with exactly? I'm pretty sure that number would be low enough to exterminate the human race entirely.

Another argument may be "but it's bad for you". One more time everybody! SO WHAT? If people choose to eat unhealthy foods with the full knowledge of the risks then who cares? People go skydiving, people join the military, and people drive cars: all of these have well known risks and are rarely criticized for that reason. That doesn't even get into the fact that being thin does not exclude you from health risks of a bad diet. 

So let's compromise: everyone can eat whatever they want as long as they're not directly interfering with another's wellbeing or life and people can stop being asshats about other people's eating habits or physical appearance. Let's make that apply to all aspects of physical appearance shall we?

Steps to better health. Part 1

Obesity is an epidemic in America today. Studies show that 70% of children 10 years old have a 33% blockage in their arteries. That's a percentage used to not be seen until adulthood. Diabetes is no longer classified as adult onset since it's more and more common in children. What can we do about this? What can I, as a parent, do about this?

For starters, I and my son are vegetarians. Is that healthy? Is that safe? Yes. We get all of our protein, all of our vitamins and minerals.. ALL of our daily nutritional needs without eating dead flesh. Many people say, but people are meant to eat meat! We're naturally omnivores. To these people I say you are only partly right. In the early days of man, gathering was much more common than hunting. During most of the year a vegetarian diet sufficed with people only relying on meat during the winter months. Some recent studies show that early man may very likely have hunted very little on their own, mostly scavaging and even then they would cut the flesh from the bone and discard it, favoring instead the nutrition filled marrow in the bones. Even assuming that this is wrong and man did actually kill most of his own food during the winter months (and we know they did at least some of the time) the human digestive system never evolved to be able to handle this type of protein. Meat is one of the hardest foods for our bodies to digest. It sicks in our digestive tracts for up to eight hours. If you know anything about digestion, you know that this is a horribly long time. Is there any good reason NOT to be a vegetarian? If you have one, please, i would love to hear it.

I've also heard people say that they've never heard of a vegetarian doing anything great. Here's a short list of great vegetarins:
Einstein
Van Gogh
Da Vinci
Pythagoras
Hans Christin Anderson
Susan B Anthony
Buddha
Elvis
Charles Darwin
Ganhdhi
Whoopie Goldburg
Sarah McLachlan
Plato
Jesus- may or may not have been vegetarian. there's much debate on this subject and it's hard to know for sure since so much of the bible is either altered or later added parables., however, some other books such as the dead sea scrolls contain passages where jesus supposedly preaches about a vegetarian diet. (http://www.essene.com/GospelOfPeace/index.html)
Just to name a few

Mind, being a vegetarian means eating properly in order to get all of the nutrients you need. (note: eating meat does NOT mean you're getting all of your nutrients) so do your research.

The health benefits of a vegetarian diet is vast and many. Vegetarians all have lower risk of obesity, hert disease, kidney disease, mental degenerative diseases, cancer and stroke.