Frances Berg | the nutritionist's dilemma

I speak for the fat people. Like Dr. Seuss’ Lorax who spoke for the trees, someone must speak for the fat people. Unlike the trees who needed a spokesperson because they had no tongues, you would think that the fat people would be able to speak for themselves. Of course, fat people have tongues. If they did not have that taste bud laden sensory organ, they would not be fat. Given the current weight of the world, this group should not be particularly hard to hear. However, in the huge public dialogue about weight and obesity, the fat people are merely statistics. There are no real people behind the statistics, and this is where they have lost their voice. Therefore, they are stripped of any ability to speak with authority on the topic.

I am not a statistic. Though I have had some years where I toed the chubby line, for the most part, I have done my part in tipping the scales toward societal svelteness. Besides my obligation as a citizen to keep the fat numbers down, as a nutritionist, it is my professional responsibility to pull people out of the fat pool and to keep them from falling in at all.

It is no big secret that the medical and nutritional community has not done a great job in their role as bariatric (the science of obesity) lifeguards. I myself do not have a great track record of turning people into mere shadows of their former selves. But, I have spent my career as a nutritionist hearing the stories and struggles of the fat people and observing the ways of food and eating that define this turn of the century. I am a spy in the house of girth.

The fat community does, in fact, have some spokespeople. There are magazines, journals, and websites edited by those (mainly women) who have spent one day too many in the deprived and depraved world of dieting. There are professionals and individuals who are doing incredible and poetic work about re-informing and re-educating on misconceptions about weight and health and respectful self-care. Still, many of these efforts are marginalized or featured in venues that only topic-obsessed people like myself pay attention to. Even Roseanne Barr once said, “It’s OK to be fat. So you’re fat. Just be fat and shut up about it.” For every individual or undertaking that sings the praises of fat, there are thousands of counter-voices screaming the imperative to whip it away.

Therefore, I believe I must use my credentials to speak out. I hope that the fat people can accept me, a thin person–who is often cold and prone to osteoporosis–and an ex-stress and emotional eater to be their voice. Born of thin mother and fat father, I will try to do the cause justice.

Thank you for listening, sharing, following and supporting my writing. Please subscribe in the sidebar to receive notice of new posts. Comments and greetings always welcome.

(to be continued)

In health, Elyn

Related Resources (2010): (Frances M. Berg); Intuitive Eating (Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch); Health at Every Size (Dr. Bacon); Dances with Fat(Ragen Chastain)

“The public is silent when young women die.” charges Naomi Wolf, author of The Beauty Myth.

I have just returned from an annual conference that I attend on Eating Disorders. The conference, in its eleventh year, is sponsored by The Nutrition Clinic and Sol Stone (Update 2020: Upstate New York Eating Disorder Service); Clearpath Healing Arts Center; and Ophelia’s Place who work together to form a strong, sensitive and progressive treatment network in central New York.

Image by Mystic Art Design at Pixabay

Each year, near the end of the conference, a handful of individuals in the recovery stage of their eating disorder are invited up to share some part of their story. This is, of course, the most enlightening and always most emotional part of the day. The wisdom acquired in overcoming such a strong opponent is very deep and these very intelligent women articulate it beautifully.

This day, a young woman in her mid-twenties, stood before the two hundred or more attendees and shared that in the darkest days of her eating disorder, she almost walked into traffic–but only stopped herself because she felt it would be immoral to place such a horrible burden on whoever might have killed her. To witness someone so young describe such a depth of despair was both bone-chilling and deeply heart-opening.

On some level, we know that there are people who are suffering from eating disorders, but essentially they are invisible. However, when one is privy to the stories of those who have had one of these crippling conditions; and you couple that with statistics like one in 100 individuals has an eating disorder—it is imaginable that there are truly some “walking dead” amongst us.

To offer some response to this young woman who had the courage to expose her pain and vulnerability and who has found the strength to persevere and to heal, I bring to this conversation– about the realities of eaters and eating– a discussion about eating disorders. I know that it does not do justice to the topic. It is a contorted and rather incomplete version of something I have written before. But, it seems a fitting time for me to introduce this part of the story. In honor of that woman and the four others who stood before me a few days ago, please consider the following.

We may have seen or heard about someone who is nibbling on only lettuce and carrots at mealtimes; wearing heavy clothing in moderate temperatures; exhibiting extreme weight loss; exercising excessively or appearing listless at a team practice or dance class. But, to the inexperienced eye, even extreme physical changes or behaviors can be overlooked or ignored. We may have even encountered someone who we suspected was suffering from an eating disorder, but we did not know what to do or say.

Most definitely, we have all had dealings with eating disordered individuals whose behaviors escaped our radar screen. The very nature of eating disorders is secretive and manipulative. Average-weight or over-weight individuals may be suffering as much as their noticeably underweight counterparts; older persons as well as younger ones; and men as well as women. Compounding the issue is that in certain environments like high schools and college campuses—but in the larger world as well—there is a “culture of thinness”. In such environments, underweight individuals can appear almost normal looking. Responses to eating disorders can include, “Oh, I wish I had that problem”, or “Why don’t they just eat?”

Even when we are cognizant and concerned about eating disorders, it is impossible to consider or measure the loss of potential and achievement, the degree of nutrient deficiencies, the magnitude of depression and anxiety, the potential for long-term health problems, and the possibility of sudden death from complications or suicide that eating disorders engender.

Eating disorders tend to leave people feeling frustrated, confused and helpless. Despite this normal reaction, it is really important that our society and our public health policymakers begin to better acknowledge, support and treat those with these disorders. Without intervention, chances for a full recovery are slim for those with severe conditions.

I have discussed my concern about the panicked way in which we are “battling” obesity. For many, overeating is an eating disorder–as deserving of a very sensitive and holistic approach to care as does “undereating”. We have the opportunity, and perhaps the obligation, to create an environment and dialogue that challenges the attitudes that make individuals feel bad about their bodies and that feed the medium in which all eating disorders thrive.

We can only hear the wisdom of those who have confronted an eating disorder if we are very quiet. If we can move the lens away from the obesity issue and reframe the disgust we harbor about fat, we may realize there is a gentler and more important conversation to be had about feeding, eating, and nourishment.

Frances Berg writes, “Our children, our daughters, and sons, are growing up afraid to eat, afraid to gain weight, afraid to grow and mature in normal ways. They are desperate to have the right bodies, obsessed with the need to be thin and fearful they won’t be loved until they reach perfection. This is the point to which our weight-obsessed culture has brought us. Our children are innocent victims.”

Thank you for listening, sharing, following and supporting my writing. Please subscribe in the sidebar to receive notice of new posts. Comments and greetings always welcome.

In health, Elyn

the nutritionist's dilemma

a nutritionist's musings on the realities of eaters and eating

Tag Archive | Frances Berg

I Speak for the Fat People: first part

Stopping Traffic