The Diet-But-Not-Diet Trend

I’ve noticed a trend within the fatosphere lately. Maybe it has always been there, and my being new resulted in it going unnoticed before. It was mentioned before in my Creating Community post; “it” being the whole hierarchy between the good fatties and the bad. More and more I’ve noticed entries which discuss healthy eating, which hold food as moral character indicators, and posts outlining how the authors needs to incorporate more physical exercise into their life. To me, these things sound oddly similar to a diet. The regulation of food, the insistence on exercise, the weighing of what foods should and shouldn’t be eaten. And while there is also mention of listening to one’s body and enjoying the exercise, something inside of me is struggling.

Perhaps it is because every time I read these posts I feel as though I am not doing my part to represent the fat world. I am not trying to eat healthier, and by that I mean trying to choose mostly vegetables and whole grains or exclude soda. I do not exercise, and I do not want to. I don’t really enjoy the whole physical exertion thing. There are some things I’m doing, such as eating less meat or taking an Omega 3 supplement, though none of these things are to be healthier. And I worry, if I am judging myself based on these entries and deciding whether or not I’m a good fattie, what are these things doing to the writers?

Am I way off base here, folks? Am I making a mountain out of a molehill or are more and more fat acceptance blogs concerned more with being healthy (It seems they all follow HAES as well) and fat than just acceptance of all fat?

What is Thanksgiving?

When I was growing up, I was taught that Thanksgiving started with the Pilgrims and Indians. The Pilgrims had a horrible winter and would have starved to death were it not for the kindness of the Indians. As I aged I learned about the massacre of the Indians, who should be called Native Americans, and instead of the Pilgrims just being helpless colonist they were actually responsible for murder, mayhem, destruction and theft. I decided, at that time, that I wouldn’t be a supporter of Thanksgiving anymore. As I think back, it was likely just an excuse to get out of family gatherings. As ignorant and uncaring as it sounds, while the destruction of the Native American people is horrible, my juvenile self was much more self centered. It was always a holiday I shied away from because of my preconceived notions of negativity, but never bothered to really learn about, as so many “facts” circulated society. As I come into adulthood and have a family of my own, I feel it’s time to take another look at this American holiday, find out what its origins are, and really assess the validity of my earlier decision.

My first stop in learning was Wikipedia. While not always the most accurate, I find it to encompass a lot of information and I make sure to look at the citations before taking anything literally. My focus, also, is on the United States Thanksgiving Day. From my reading, it seems no one really knows when the first Thanksgiving was had, but that most everything that was taught concerning it is a lie.

The first recorded Thanksgiving was held by the Spaniards in 1565 in thanks of their arrival in a new world. The article specifically lists it as “Mass of Thanksgiving”, and given that Roman Catholicism is the major religion in Spain gives implication that this was a religious ceremony. The next recorded celebration was in 1619 when the Virginia colony gave thanks to God on the first day of their arrival per the group’s charter. Next, in 1621, the Pilgrims and Wampanoag surfaced with their Thanksgiving celebration. A major element with this, however, is that these people didn’t regard their celebration as “Thanksgiving”, as we do now, but as a celebration of the harvest which was traditional for both culture prior to this. While the Native Americans did teach the Pilgrims how to catch eel and grow corn, it was not the great feast and friendship that Charlie Brown would have people believe. Especially since a year later the Indian Massacre of 1622 took place. From this point, the idea of Thanksgiving was primarily based upon colony and culture:

The Pilgrims did not hold a true Thanksgiving until 1623, when it followed a drought, prayers for rain, and a subsequent rain shower. Irregular Thanksgivings continued after favorable events and days of fasting after unfavorable ones. In the Plymouth tradition, a thanksgiving day was a church observance, rather than a feast day.

Gradually, an annual Thanksgiving after the harvest developed in the mid-17th century. This did not occur on any set day or necessarily on the same day in different colonies in America.

The Massachusetts Bay Colony (consisting mainly of Puritan Christians) celebrated Thanksgiving for the first time in 1630, and frequently thereafter until about 1680, when it became an annual festival in that colony; and Connecticut as early as 1639 and annually after 1647, except in 1675. The Dutch in New Netherland appointed a day for giving thanks in 1644 and occasionally thereafter.

Charlestown, Massachusetts held the first recorded Thanksgiving observance June 29, 1671 by proclamation of the town’s governing council.

During the 18th century individual colonies commonly observed days of thanksgiving throughout each year. We might not recognize a traditional Thanksgiving Day from that period, as it was not a day marked by plentiful food and drink as is today’s custom, but rather a day set aside for prayer and fasting.

During the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) in 1777, after victory at the Battles of Saratoga, the first National Thanksgiving Day was proclaimed by the Continental Congress to be on December 18th. The Continental Congress also proclaimed additional Thanksgiving Days every year or so throughout the war until 1784. These proclamations were heavily laced with Christian language and in support of the “just and necessary war” and very rarely done in November. No Thanksgiving proclamations were made again until 1789 when George Washington issued one as the first President of the United States. It wasn’t until 1863, under Abraham Lincoln, that Thanksgiving began to be celebrated annually on the last Thursday in November, without a government proclamation. It was Franklin D. Roosevelt that broke this tradition, and moved Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday of November when the month had five, and the third when the month had four. Finally, in 1941 that the U.S. Congress passed a law dictating that Thanksgiving be celebrated annually on the fourth Thursday in November. Thus the holiday has evolved into what it is today.

The history of Thanksgiving in 700 words, ladies and gentlemen. If you’re still with me, congrats and thanks. What this all seems to boil down to, for me at least, is that Thanksgiving’s roots are in religious (namely Christian) celebration, praise of victory in wartimes, or when neither of the two were available, just a good ole slap on the back for America and praise for “the Almighty”. Even when the celebration was had for wartime, the proclamations were decidedly Christian in nature. So while families may not play up the religious side of the holiday, it definitely stems from religion. However, does that make it a religious holiday? As someone considering converting to Judaism, should I be partaking of this holiday because it is part of the history of my country despite the Christian connotations? Should I ignored the history of the holiday and instead focus on the ideal of thanking God, or my family, or myself for all that has been accomplished and received? Should I just be thankful and celebrate without worrying myself so much about what Thanksgiving really means? Is Thanksgiving just another consumerist holiday like St. Valentine’s?

Knowing what you now do about Thanksgiving, what are your thoughts?

Judgments Run Deep

Rachel over at The F-Word posted an exercise for her readers in reference to the epidemic of fat kids. I thought it was a great post and was interested to see what folks said. Unfortunately, I was quickly offended and taken back by some of the responses.

Several of the comments talked about what people purchase with their food stamps, passing judgment on a parent who chooses to buy pre-packaged food as opposed to cooking from scratch. I can’t help but feel those judgments just add fuel to the “eat healthy and be thin” fire. One comment stated people need to “learn to cook” and “If I were using food stamps, I’d do my damnedest to make that money stretch as far as possible, because we all know that it’s never enough as it is.” Leaving aside the fact this person is speaking from a hypothetical point of view (and one never knows what they would truly do in a situation until they are in it), let’s address what comments like these really say. If a parent doesn’t cook everything from scratch then they aren’t doing everything they know how to make their food stamps stretch. That if a parent doesn’t devote themselves to cooking then they are a bad parent.

One commenter offered “that it is your duty as a parent, rich or poor, to do the best by your child/ren that you can, and in my world, that does not include feeding them crap when you are on a budget.” Again, indicating because not everyone can be a champion in the kitchen, that they are a bad parent. Not everyone is blessed with skillz in the kitchen, and not everyone has the time to devote to learning or doing. Everyone’s mileage varies. I wonder if these people can realize that making others live by their own standards is the same as someone else making them live by theirs. It just gets ridiculous. Everyone cannot do the same things and we have to stop trying to make everyone fit into a box. Perhaps pre-packaged food is not the best, I’m not arguing that it is, but I don’t think it makes a parent less just because they cook from a box. My grandmother always believed it was more important to devote time to her family than to cook from scratch and keep the house clean. Was she a perfect mother? No, but she saved my life.

Thankfully there were a couple of commenters who really laid out the realities of trying to be a single parent and cook from scratch, as well as everything else, but I’m not sure the first commenters really listened.

Aside from that, as a fattie I live my life facing people every day who tell me if I just “show a little discipline” I could be thin and healthy like I should be. If I would just “eat the right foods (or go without food sometimes)” then I would be able to shed pounds and be beautiful. If I would just “exercise and watch what I eat” then I achieve a toned, healthy, beautiful body which will make men want to marry me (or, at the very least, have sex with me). There have been claims that fat people are causing global warming and the American deficit. I was recently sent a “joke” video called “three reasons to quit drinking” where one man awoke to find a pair of plus-sized panties in his bed. In another clip the man awoke to having a dismembered arm handcuffed to his wrist, and the third was a man who awoke with a chimp in a very provocative position. So, having sex with a fat person is associated with having sex with animals and dismembered bodies. Seriously. Look at the correlation between those phrases and associations and things like “people need to learn to cook” and “… the day I buy frakkin’ Lunchables for my son will also be the day I vote Republican, become a Christian, and buy an SUV”.

When are we, as unique individuals, ever going to understand that not everyone is the same? That people have to make decisions and do what they think is best for themselves, even if we don’t agree and that /doesn’t/ make those people any less. Yes, a capitalist can be a good person. Hell, a /Republican/ can be a good person. Just like fatties can be good people, or drunks, or Christians, or convicts. Get off your fuckin’ high horse folks.