Michelle Bridges (you can see her on TV and buy her books!) has thoughts about disgusting fatties and how disgusting we are. Did I mention you can see her on TV and buy her books and she works in the getting paid to tell people they are disgusting fitness industry? This obviously makes her a totally disinterested expert.
And kinda oblivious:
It’s as if no one takes our obesity epidemic seriously.
I want some of what she’s smoking. But let’s not write off Michelle Bridges as just another fat-hater, she’s a genius of marketing:
If a loved one is struggling with unhealthy lifestyle issues, lead by example and get your own exercise and nutrition habits in order first. Why? For the same reason an aircraft safety demo tells you to put on your own oxygen mask before helping others.
See? Lest anyone be reading her diatribe about the horrors of junk food and the tsunami (tasteful word choice) of obeeeeeeesity that’s heading our way and thinking “Damn straight! Fatties are gross, I’m so much better than them!” she lets you all know that you, too, should be buying her book and also watching her on TV “getting healthy”.
The beautiful irony is that she’s a “trainer” on The Biggest Loser, a show which is so much about health and lifestyle change that it lies about the amount of time between weigh-ins, carefully avoids banning contestants from adopting seriously damaging dietary habits(*pointed look*), and would really like it if previous contestants could shut up about how it doesn’t actually work already.* (Unless of course you believe everyone should spend their entire lives worrying about the calories in egg whites and giving the industry more money going to the gym on a daily basis.)
But the real bad guy here is Stuff, for once again presenting advertising as though it’s journalism. And I wonder why I read blogs to get all my news …
~
*Even a blog called, literally, Burn The Fat Blog is against ya, Michelle.
“… seeing overweight parents buying chips and soft drinks for overweight kids; hearing that yet another drive-through fast-food outlet is opening in one of our suburbs; learning that some of these outlets serve burgers made with doughnuts instead of buns.”
I want a burger with doghnut buns. I want two of them.
Only if it were a fried chicken burger, beef + doughnuts doesn’t tickle my fancy. But I’d settle for a return of the Double Down, that was obscenely tasty.
Argh, I read this and was also pissed off. And I too have a huge loathing of the Biggest Loser- I already did, but then a while back read a bunch of those stories about contestants pissing blood and severely damaging themselves because apparently thin=healthy (according to the show), even if you damage your kidneys doing it.
When I read this article on Stuff I wondered about her classification as PCOS as an obesity related illness- I thought it caused weight gain, not was caused by being fat? (I don’t actually know, so had wondered about it). If so, it’s a majorly sneaky (and wrong) use of the phrase ‘obesity-related’.
My understanding is that weight gain is a symptom of PCOS. But there are a lovely number of apparently qualified medical professionals who like to ignore that (see http://fathealth.wordpress.com/ if you reeeeeally want to get depressed on the subject).
I freakin’ love that site- can never remember how I got there in the first place, but you’re right: it is seriously depressing. I wasn’t too sure about the PCOS thing, but I was under the impression that it caused weight gain, not the other way around, and was thinking that if that was true but Michelle Bridges was implying that being fat caused PCOS then that would be truly scummy. But, as you say, I guess it wouldn’t be that unexpected, given how bad fat people are often treated by health professionals.
This is where wikipedia is your friend
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCOS#Cause
Firmly genetic, with weight increase caused by the development of insulin resistance, resulting in higher insulin levels which forces fat cells to synthesise storage fats and not release them. Leading to fat cell’s dividing once they’re full (the short, not digging in the textbook version). Which isn’t helped either by the up kick in testosterone levels (and friends) if my memory’s recalling the biochem stuff properly.
So yeah, Michelle Bridges is utterly full of shit with that one.
Yeah, I had a quick look around when I was wondering about it/before I commented, and what I found supported ’causes weight gain’ not ’caused by weight gain’, but I didn’t want to make any bold calls about PCOS based on a quick skim, haha. I am happy to make the call that she’s full of shit!
Don’t quote me on the last bit though… Too tired to go hunt and refine search terms and synthesise a summary from teh literature + I no longer have the ability to get though journal pay walls
Losing journal access: worst part of leaving university.
+1
And by the elder things, the prices they charge for just a single article, let alone a year’s subscription…
“But the real bad guy here is Stuff, for once again presenting advertising as though it’s journalism. And I wonder why I read blogs to get all my news “…
Have you noticed how much space has been wasted on “Rugby Heaven” (surely a non sequiter alongside “military intelligence” and “medical science”)
Oh, don’t even get me started!