08.28.09 - The People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has seen reason and removed the offensive "Save The Whales! Lose The Blubber. Go Vegetarian" billboard ads and replaced them with the ironic but considerably less offensive "Gone - Just like all the pounds lost by people who go vegetarian."
"Gone" -- as if to say to you, the public "Gone! We get it. We heard you loud and clear! We removed our 'offensive' ad and came up with something milder, okay?" And that's fine. That's all we were asking for.
This clearly shows once again that all it takes is a concentrated effort sending a simple yet very loud message to those who discriminate. With enough time and all the resources available (telephone, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, blogs, webpages, faxes and postal mail), the offending party will get the message and if they do not wish to continue to be flooded with angry (yet peaceful) protest, which can also lead to boycotts of them financially, then they will change course and correct the problem. This works for politicians, corporations and anti-fat organizations like PETA.
Thank you ALL for your participation in this activism/advocacy effort. It may seem like something small -- but in this case, within two weeks' time, you got PETA to replace billboard ads all across the United States! And those ads were berating and hurting fat people every time they saw them, sometimes multiple times in a day. So it's a big deal! Give yourselves a hand, you deserve it!
Interesting Fact: "Finkelstein's firm, RTI International, has even designed a downloadable Obesity Cost Calculator to help business owners figure out how much money they're losing to lard-butt staffers. (RTI also happens to serve a client list that includes some of the biggest names in the weight-loss industry.)" (Source: "It's time to shut up about the cost of obesity." - Slate, Daniel Engber 02/2008)
Relevance: This is the same Obesity Cost Calculator the CDC is presently using in their Scare America methods. The CDC has officially adopted, without question, something designed by the weight loss industry to scare people into losing weight and justify such scaremongering approaches. (To paraphrase a colleague of mine in SHAES)
VIDEO: Chicago Tonight Interview with Kate Harding - 07/27/09
The Mission of the International Size Acceptance Association is to promote size acceptance and to help end weight-based discrimination throughout the world by means of advocacy and visible, lawful actions.
Did you know that ISAA has branches across the United States, in Canada, Brazil, the United Kingdom, France, Australia and even the Middle East? ISAA's message of size acceptance and Respect, Fitness, Health has reached millions of people through radio, television, newspapers and even through film (in the DVD edition of the Oscar-nominated documentary Supersize Me). ISAA representatives have been on the Fox News Channel, National Public Radio, CNN, Al-Jazeera, the BBC, the Discovery Channel, the Laura Ingraham Show and the Wall Street Journal's Work & Family Show. ISAA representatives have been quoted in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Times, TIME Magazine and many other notable publications, television and radio programs, both nationally and abroad.
So why all the attention to what ISAA has to say? ISAA takes a no-nonsense, professional approach to helping save lives through educating the public about health and wellness for people of all sizes as well as the realities of weight-based discrimination and who gets hurt by it (everyone). ISAA also reaches people through its online electronic magazine Without Measure and ISAA launched the world's first size acceptance online talk radio show (a podcast), The ISAA Rapport in 2002. Now, it has been followed by ISAA Pods and PODWOM.
ISAA believes that by communicating our message through interesting and entertaining mediums, in addition to public appearances and advocacy campaigns, we have the best chance of reaching the most people to give them information they might not otherwise receive or consider. This is to help empower people to make decisions for themselves, armed with the necessary information to make educated choices concerning their health and their bodies, or those close to them.
WHAT WILL IT TAKE? By ISAA Director Allen Steadham
(Also available as of 07/29/09 at WOM Beta, an ISAA group blog)
We have begun to get glimpses at the U.S. Government-proposed "public option" in health care, and it is worse than I feared. And now ISAA is getting media requests to discuss the proposed "obesity taxes" associated with the same healthcare measures. The possibilities of the potential future are frightening.
Of course, we should be used to being made afraid. The medical and bariatric surgery industries try to make us afraid of fat, the U.S. Government tries to make us afraid of fat and just about any public figure who wants to stir up fear uses the Universal Term of Horror (UToH): Obesity. And it works.
Well now it's our turn, except we're not saying to be afraid of obesity. We're saying fear those who would legislate obesity!
Health and Human Services Secretary Katherine Sebelius says "We are killing ourselves, and more importantly, we are killing our children" at a 3-day conference in Washington D.C. called "Weight of the Nation." Wow, guys, how subtle. At the same time, a "new study" came out claiming "obese Americans — those who are 30 or more pounds over a healthy weight — cost the country an estimated $147 billion in weight-related medical bills in 2008." (Source: USA Today)
Was that study made by the same people who said 200,000 people die of obesity each year and it really turned out to be closer to 28,000 or less? Regardless, people in the medical industry and more importantly, people in the legislative and executive branches take these studies-passed-off-as-facts very seriously! And these are the people who will determine whether or not the healthcare initiative gets passed and if so, what will become law.
Now, in all fairness, Sibelius and others did make recommendations for encouraging healthy food choices and more physical activities on the local level. There's nothing wrong with that, so long as that doesn't translate into forcing people to eat specific things in specific quantities based on their Body Mass Index (BMI) or weight on a scale. Because we have another name for that: a DIET! And even the weight loss industry finally conceded that diets don't work (just ask Weight Watchers, it's their mantra now).
It doesn't matter what those of us in the Size Acceptance Movement have been saying for years -- that you can be fat and fit, that it takes a healthy self-esteem to make for a better person, that weight-based discrimination leads to eating disordered and other self-destructive behaviors (including suicide), that the medical industry has a built-in bias against fat people that begins in medical school, that weight loss surgery kills thousands and maims thousands more each year. None of that matters! The law of the land is not ours to dictate...that is in the hands of elected officials in Washington D.C. who have their own opinions, their own biases and unfortunately, their own agendas.
A few weeks ago, I literally sounded the alarm! There is a threat to every fat person in America. The threat is not healthcare you don't have to pay for (except you do, through your taxes), it's the control the U.S. Government would have to deny you healthcare at all! Some people have scoffed at that and told me "Allen, it's like that now! I can't get approved for this or for that already!" And sadly, for some people, that is absolutely true.
But you ain't seen nothin' yet! This bill opens the door for the Government to have unlimited control of healthcare, which can literally mean they control your quality of life! And by tying it to insurance and ultimately, wrestling management from the private sector, all kinds of scenarios become possible:
Want a job? Get weight loss surgery. Hey, the government will pay for it!
Need lifesaving cancer treatment? Your BMI is too high, raising your risk factor. Coverage denied.
Need some credit to buy a house, buy a bed, medical equipment, a car? Will that be gastric bypass or lapband?
Shall I go on? There is a genuine threat building. And the only answer is to unite and fight for the term "size (weight and height)" to be added to Federal anti-discrimination laws before the drastic healthcare initiatives become the law of the land.
Do we need to have "hospices for fat people" and mandatory weight loss surgery before people will have had enough? The proposed legislation has proven to me that the people who drafted the legislation do not have human life as the priority, only the bottom line.
Seriously...what will it take?
Watch ISAA's Kelly Bliss and Actress Joy Nash of A Fat Rant Debate MeMe Roth of National Action Against Obesity on The Morning Show With Mike and Juliet (20 mins, no commercials)
Because you must respect yourself in order to succeed.
Self-respect and self-esteem are fundamental parts of the human psyche. They are essential keys to unlocking human potential.
When people feel good about themselves and become secure in who they are, they are able to look beyond their current circumstances and dream of a better life.
ISAA contends that every human being is deserving of a fundamental level of respect.
FITNESS
Because people of all sizes can become more fit
Despite claims to the contrary, people do not have to become slim to become fit; it is possible to be "fit and fat" at the same time.
Basic low impact exercise such as walking and swimming can have a very noticeable and positive effect on the human body, when maintained on a semi-regular basis. As people become more fit, their chances of living longer increase.
HEALTH
Because everyone could benefit from healthier food choices
Modern work and family schedules are astoundingly fast and frantic, leaving little time for home-cooked or healthy meals. This, combined with a decrease in physically demanding jobs, the invention of mass transportation, computers, video games and the internet have resulted in less physically active societies that are also eating less healthily.
ISAA is committed to helping inform the public about healthier food choices.
