Lets just back up there a minute. Lower self esteem may be an issue for some men, but if ‘they don’t seem to care’ about their beer bellies as noted in the article, who is to say they have low self esteem or less sex because of their belly?

you only need to look around
to realise how many men are overweight and have a beer belly.
They don’t seem to care either.

Maybe because it isn’t having much of an impact on their lives?

People have been working around bellies of all sorts to perform PIV sex for a long time and if they can’t well guess what – people, being the wonderful creative species that we are – have worked out other ways to get our rocks off! I know, blow me down with a feather too, fat people have worked out how to have sex even with each other. You know, if you google it you can find images on the internet to show you just how to do it too. Some of them are even moderately safe for work.

Okay so we have dealt with the bullshit logical fallacy that fat men are so self hating they can’t bring themselves to have sex with anyone. Now, erectile dysfunction is a serious problem. Fortunately, whoever wrote this article has a modicum of common sense and does point out that this problem is not confined to men with a beer belly. I would go further and say that there are probably men with a beer belly who don’t suffer from erectile dysfunction and may never suffer from it. But an important health message is being lost amid the fat hate.

However, overweight men should view the prospect of impotence as a compelling motivation to lead a different lifestyle; one that involves regular exercise and a healthy diet. It is for their own sakes and that of their partners.

Erectile dysfunction does not just affect overweight men. [my emphasis] The world’s largest study to examine links between erectile dysfunction and heart disease found even minor erection difficulties in healthy fit men, can be an indicator of future heart risks.The authors of the study, undertaken in Australia and published last month in the on-line journal PLOS Medicine, examined data of 95,038 men aged 45 years and older.

The researchers concluded that erectile dysfunction does not cause heart disease but may be an early indicator of the problems that lead to it, such as a build-up of plaque in the arteries.

So it is something that can happen to skinny blokes too. Which kind of suggests that it isn’t a problem with fat. I haven’t studied medicine or health, but some Hoydens have and I have heard that many of the health textbooks still take the male body as the default option. So I don’t believe that we could get to 2013 and still be unaware that being fat = positive correlation with erectile dysfunction. If it happened to every guy who was overweight we would know about it. It would be a big thing (pun unintended).

So why the focus on fat?

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Related posts:

1. Today in WTF I don’t even
2. Quick Hit – World Health Day and a Voice For Choice
3. Quickhit: Mental health not taken seriously by Govt

From a previous post of mine with reference to the Komen storm earlier this year:

from Think Before You Pink: Critical Questions to Ask Before You Buy Pink – I’ll just list the questions here with my own brief summary of why it matters, go there for a fuller background on the questions.
1. How much money from your purchase actually goes toward breast cancer? Is the amount clearly stated on the package?
(Is it what you consider a reasonable amount, or is it insultingly small?)
2. What is the maximum amount that will be donated?
(Has the corporation capped the donation, has that cap already been reached, thus will your purchase actually contribute to the cause?)
3. How are the funds being raised?
(Does the corporation send money on from your purchase directly? Or do you have to mail in proof of purchase? Is the donation more than the cost of the stamps?)
4. To what breast cancer organization does the money go, and what types of programs does it support?
(Research? Screening? Treatment? Established and already well funded? New and innovative? Where exactly?)
5. What is the company doing to assure that its products are not actually contributing to the breast cancer epidemic?
(Many companies whose products have been linked to higher cancer rates invest heavily in the pink ribbon promotions. Should their cynicism be rewarded?)

s.e. smith writes on the challenges pinkification exemplarises for social activism generally:

The path of the pink ribbon and breast cancer awareness in general reflects a larger problem experienced by social movements. It seems that every time they develop a tool of solidarity and something to use as they work in a coalition to address a specific social issue, that tool is handily repurposed for profits, and before anyone can move to take it back, it’s too late. Social movements in general can be excruciatingly slow to adapt to changing circumstances, just as the breast cancer awareness movement was.

A movement that started with powerful intentions became commercial, gender essentialist, and repugnant in many of its mainstream incarnations, even as smaller campaigns and voices actively agitated against its framing. Those who oppose the use of sexism and gender essentialism in breast cancer campaigns are cast as opponents of action on breast cancer; in a strange twist, the people demanding that major breast cancer awareness campaigners be accountable first and foremost to patients are told they don’t care about breast cancer patients.

Ou’s whole post is well worth reading – the above quote is only a very short excerpt.

This short quote from the opening of a Feb 2012 article from Mother Jones on the Komen foundation as a very useful definition of pinkwashing:

“pinkwashing,” i.e. corporations donating a miniscule fraction of money earned from peddling stuff adorned with Komen’s pink ribbon to cancer research, or holding a run (after which less than half of the proceeds go to “the cause,” pre-overhead) rather than, say, providing decent health care to workers or keeping toxins out of water supply.

Image credit: Index thumbnail of pink cut-out dolls stuck into a lawn (author unknown) found on this fascinating 2010 post from Heart Sisters blog: What women with heart disease can learn from “pinkwashing” this month

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Related posts:

1. Quicklink: What would it take to trust Komen again?
2. Pinkwashing cancer – Pink Ribbons, Inc. asks who’s benefiting most?
3. Susan G Komen Foundation Follows Pro-Life Line; Stops Contributing to Planned Parenthood

”It may sound draconian, but why are we rewarding children for good behaviour at all?”

Okay so I cherry picked this from this article scaremongering on childhood obesity. *puts on ranty pants, places tongue in cheek (somewhat)*

So why do we reward children for good behaviour? I mean it’s not like we reward anyone else for good behaviour is it? Convicted criminals never get time off their sentence for good behaviour. We never train our pets with praise for showing behaviours we approve of ‘Good kitty using the scratching post’ ‘Sit! Good dog!’. We never get rewards as adults for good behaviour like turning up to work and doing our job and getting paid. Or getting a bonus, or a payrise or perhaps even a promotion. Nope never happens. We never get praised, appreciated, spoilt, pampered, awarded, or reap the benefits of our good behaviour. So why should children? Why should we encourage the behaviour that we want to see rather than just expect it without a word of suggestion? Why aren’t we the shouty mean angry parents that deep down we know we should be? Why aren’t our children constantly cowering seen but not heard, and seen seldom like they should be. Why do our children expect to be treated like human beings? Why the fuck shouldn’t we reward good behaviour?

Sure, the researchers main point is that we shouldn’t reward good behaviour with ‘sweets’. But this assumes that all good behaviour is rewarded with sweet food. I don’t know any parent that responds to a child playing quietly with ‘oh you are so good this afternoon here have a chocolate’ or use of an inside voice with ‘here is a lolly snake’. Praise and reward come in all sorts of forms and there is no reason not to occassionally reward kids with a bag of lollies or a sweet treat. Claiming that this is the reason for the “childhood obesity epidemic” is pure spin as is in fact this whole ‘epidemic’ rubbish.

FED on a steady diet of fast food, soft drinks and television, 20 per cent of children are overweight or obese by the time they start kindergarten.

Sure my kids like TV but they couldn’t eat a whole one. So is it all children or only 20% who have this diet of fast food and soft drinks? Surely if this were the case then the 20% would have health problems like malnutition rather than just being overweight? I don’t buy into the overweight = unhealthy schtick in case you hadn’t noticed.

So what is my solution? Simple fund public schools better so they can teach kids about healthy eating and exercise and give them opportunities to engage in fun play. Don’t shame them because of their body shape or size. Don’t encourage eating disorders by harping on about epidemics, and provide more funding for people who do suffer from eating disorders. Better train doctors to treat the person not Drs prejudices about fat people. Realise that fat people can be healthy people too and that fat may not be the cause of all illnesses but rather a symptom. Or someone might just be fat because they are. That fat people might be okay with that and that it is not harming you if someone else is fat.

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Related posts:

1. Hey Dad – this time it’s all YOUR fault
2. Just say no to uninformed opinions and fat phobia.
3. Life at 3: obesity

Lets just step back and look at that objectively shall we. Australians are more healthy (yay Australians, go us) but Obesity (ZOMG!!!!) looms large. So more of us are obese? But we are more healthy. So what is the fucking issue here again? Oh that’s right fat = bad. So we can ignore the Australians are more healthy for the more headline-ingly (yes I just made up a word, I’m fat I’m allowed to) exciting “Obesity crisis!” Although exactly how it is a crisis if we are more healthy is yet to be explained.

So onto the rest of this article. Chlamydia rates are increasing. OMG! But hang on, if all fat people are as unattractive as the average comments on an article about obesity will tell you then who is having all the sex. Hmmmmmm. *snippy tone* Might want to think about using some condoms in all that sex you are enjoying then *supercilious look* (no I did not make up that word).

Lung disease. Yep this sucks but more likely to be correlated with smoking than obesity or perhaps genetic disposition or work in some industries? Still not seeing the obesity crisis bit.

Diabetes. Okay here we go. What, what do you mean thin people get diabetes too. Really? Are you sure? There are two types? No one generally bothers to differentiate between them you say? Fat and thin people can suffer from either? Or both (no really, how sucky is that?).

One in four adults is obese and one in 12 children. But every Australian has at least one risk factor for poor health (what being alive?) and one in seven have five or more risk factors.

Lets focus on that again. One in four adults are obese. Everyone has at least one risk factor for poor health. One in seven people have five or more risk factors.

So one in four obese, one in seven have five or more risk factors. So some of those obese people out there have less than five risk factors to their health. Making them just the same as a thin person in terms of risk. Who would have thought it.

The most common risk factors are lack of activity and lack of sufficient fruit and vegetable intake. But of course we all know that anyone who isn’t obese is active and eats 5&2 every day. Don’t they?

Plus risk =/= certainty. Otherwise insurance companies wouldn’t exist to make healthy profits. So where is the obesity crisis again?

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Related posts:

1. Today in WTF I don’t even
2. Hey Dad – this time it’s all YOUR fault
3. Working Mum it’s all your fault too.

State Reps. Lisa Brown, D-West Bloomfield, and Barb Byrum, D-Onondaga, were told today that they wouldn’t be recognized to publicly speak on any matters before the House because of comments they made Wednesday during an emotional debate on a bill that puts new restrictions on abortion providers. Brown, who voted against the legislation, told supporters of the bill, “I’m flattered you’re all so concerned about my vagina. But no means no.”

Freedom of Speech is great, huh.

H/T to @jamesjdominguez on Twitter

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Related posts:

1. Not guilty!
2. Victorian upper house votes on decriminalising abortion today
3. Hurrah for librarians

This whole ‘war on obesity’ really really shits me. Yes I am a fat woman. Yes I need to eat more fruit and vegetables. Yes I am at risk of a range of health issues as I age. It’s called the ageing process and it gets you whether you are fat or thin. The only thing that makes a difference is your health – and you don’t automatically get healthy points for being thin. I know it’s controversial, but the evidence is in – thin people die from heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, and all those other nasty things that you only ever hear linked to obesity, too. In fact, thin people are more likely to go about their daily business completely unaware that they are at risk of nasty life shortening diseases – if they live a sedentary existence, just the same as overweight people who live a sedentary existence. It is living the sedentary existence that is the killer, not the amount of adipose tissue you have. The killer fat, the stuff that really does stuff you up, hides around your internal organs and fills you up on the inside so you can look thin on the outside and still be dying of some nasty disease that no one thinks to look for because you are thin. But even if you are active and thin then death can still sneak up on you. Every so often someone makes it to the papers for the wrong reasons – dropped dead on the squash court, on their morning jog, while playing their weekly tennis match. When we were talking about blood pressure (mine) my Dr let slip that the people most likely to die of undiagnosed high blood pressure were fit men because your blood pressure can get to really high, at doing lots of damage levels, without you feeling a thing. Fit men who rarely get sick don’t go to the Dr and never check their blood pressure and then bang it is too late. But is there a war on high blood pressure? Is there any indication that someone otherwise fit and healthy could have a ticking timebomb running through their veins? Don’t be ridiculous, we all know fat people are the ones at risk. 

Because I am fat I am seen as slothful, unhealthy, unintelligent, ugly and wrong by people who refuse to believe that you can be fat and healthy and by a diet industry who knows that 95-98% of diets fail because the people  on them don’t end up as thin and beautiful and successful as advertised*, yet still blame the consumer for doing something wrong. It is a perfect business model – sell fast weight loss knowing that your customers will put on more weight once they have finished your program then sell them another one ad infinitum. Anyone can lose weight, just the same as anyone can starve to death, you just stop eating. But the weight loss from restricted calorie intake is short term and short lived, and chances are you will put back on more than you lost in the first place. Yes, as a population we are getting bigger. We have been getting bigger for years, that’s what happens when nutrition improves which is why we are taller and larger than our ancestors.

But this doesn’t stop everyone and their dog from having a go at blaming fat people for being fat. Need to throw out a few hundred words for a column? Talk about how fat people, and maybe you even include yourself in this, just need to eat less and exercise more. Your editor will lap it up. Ignore the Health at Every Size movement which encourages people of all sizes – hence the name - to eat a healthy selection of foods and get moderate exercise, because that isn’t peddling weight loss and fat shame. Ignore the lived experience of people who live and love fat healthy lives because that doesn’t fit with the image you want to project. Pretend that if you just lost those X number of kilos that your life would be perfect – although if you are a woman you probably would find that your career prospects improved – not because you are thin now, but because the society we live in is fucked. This does not correlate for fat men. How surprising.

The best way to get along in this thin worshipping western society? Don’t get fat, ever. But don’t diet either because that will make you fat. Don’t have fat grandparents or you are completely fucked. What your grandmothers ate will affect the person you become. Better hope that she never had to eat whatever she could to survive, or whatever was put on her plate as a child. Or if you can’t control that, better make sure as an adult that you have the time and money to spend all your time weighing out your carefully calorie controlled meals, exercising daily for up to two hours, or more if the kilos start creeping back on. You won’t have time for work or children or socialising outside of exercise but hey you will be thin. I’m not being sarcastic about the last bit – a recent study looked at the 2% who kept their weight off after significant weight loss and that is exactly what they did – exercised for hours a day and obsessed about their food. One couple, retired, that they interviewed said they never would be able to manage it if they still had children living at home or had to go to work each day because maintaining the weightloss took up a considerable amount of their day and had to be factored in to everything they did including going on holidays. They rarely eat out because calculating the calorific content of meals they didn’t prepare themselves was too difficult. Sounds like a dreamy lifestyle doesn’t it.

One thing that really made me sad was someone writing on their tumblr that they had a cold and that while normally the suggested treatment would be to keep up fluids and get bed rest, when you are obese the suggested treatment is more likely to be eat a calorie controlled diet and get moderate exercise. The author was joking, but there is a large element of truth in that. More recently a person I followed on twitter said that her partner’s ear infection was not caused by him being fat – but that is what the Dr had said anyway. You heard it here second – fat causes ear infections now. FFS.

So I say fuck dieting, I am embracing the HAES movement. I am finding, slowly but I’m getting there, ways to move that I enjoy. I have all the things that I always thought would be the one thing to get me motivated to get fit and lose weight and they are sitting gathering dust, although I am using my new walking shoes and the iPod once a week when I walk while my daughter goes to gym. I’m still working on the other six days. I am eating more vegetables and menu planning (most weeks) so that when we drag ourselves through the door at the end of a long work day there is something quick easy and nutritious waiting to be quickly cooked or heated up for dinner. We are cooking more interesting and tempting food. I am overcoming a lifelong vegetable aversion and finding that some of those things I have disliked for years are actually quite nice when cooked differently. (cue eyerolling from vegetarian and non-vegetable averse friends who have known this like forever) I am still arguing with my Dr about weight loss, because I tell him that I am working on my fitness and eating habits and he is still focussed on weight loss. But maybe if I become the fit fatty, with perfect blood pressure and blood glucose levels I know I can be, that will shut him up. I might lose a bit of adipose tissue along the way, I might not. But if I am healthy at the end of it then what does it matter?

There are also a couple of elephants in the room I should address. As a person without a disability, currently, I can’t address the issue of not being able to exercise and I haven’t looked into HAES enough to know if it does address this issue. Also, there is the factor that you don’t owe it to anyone to be healthy, that your health is no one else’s business but your own. How you choose to live your life is your choice. For everyone saying ‘but you are a drain on the health system/my taxes pay for your choices’ etc. that is part of living in society. The choice of the majority of Australians to live on the Eastern seaboard means that roads where I choose to live don’t get the funding they need because there is greater demand in the cities, and more voter pressure. My taxes pay for things I will probably never use, just as a tiny proportion of your taxes pay for things that I do use. To quote Tony – it just is. 

ETA: I should also have mentioned food deserts. How can you eat a diet high in vegetables when you don’t have access to them? When the food easiest for you to purchase is highly processed, high in fat, salt and sugar or corn syrup? When something nice to eat might be the only nice thing you get all day? When maybe this is the stuff that you eat but you are still thin?

And now for the link love. Many of these will be familiar already to Hoydens, but you might find something new:

  http://www.insecurewriters.com/BrainChild.pdf?utm_source=Newsletter+May+2012&utm_campaign=May+Newsletter&utm_medium=email

http://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/ 

http://fatheffalump.wordpress.com/

http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/news/inthemag/8475009/why-obesity-is-not-your-fault (Kath isn’t much impressed with the headline, but says the article is okay except for the bit with the Dr spruiking gastric banding. The hard copy magazine has the whole article)

http://www.lindabacon.org/

http://www.ajcn.org/content/82/1/222S.full *An interesting article on long term weight loss (defined as 10% or more of body weight kept off for over 12 months). To meet this I would have to lose 11 kg approx and keep it off for over 1 year. Guess what, I would still be fat and successful at long term weight loss. Ha. You don’t hear much about that.

http://www.healthymagination.com/blog/best-strategies-for-maintaining-long-term-weight-loss/ Maintaining weight loss – weigh yourself every day, and exercise more if you start to put weight back on. Or, my version, find an activity you enjoy and enjoy it , eat well and watch the things that do make a difference like blood glucose level and blood pressure – whether you are fat or thin. This article does have some interesting things in it about what happens to chemicals in the blood that make you feel hungry or satiated and why this can affect your success at weight loss. For me that shows why weight loss as a goal in and of itself is a bit pointless because you are fighting against your own body’s natural processes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/mariannekirby Marianne Kirby is just all round awesome.

Just a short note on the recent Bigges Loser: “Fat People are Unloveable” series. Firstly, fuck you BL producers. Secondly, I was fat when I got married, I have put on and lost weight during my marriage, had two kids and am still fat and still married. It’s been 15+ years now.  Being fat has not and does not make me or anyone else unloveable.  Making people think that they are unloveable because they are fat just sucks. There are plenty of thin single people out there. There are plenty of single fat people out there. Maybe if both groups didn’t believe the fat ones were unloveable there might be fewer single people altogether?

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Related posts:

1. OMG Zombesity crisis, again.
2. Quick hit: Not as easy as calories in =/= calories out
3. Pinch me

Why feminism hasn’t taken on disability issues yet from One Survivor to Another
Why feminism isn’t ready to take on disability issues – because white, cis, able, middle class feminism is still failing at intersectionality.

Carers welcome disability insurance scheme.
Carers have waited a long time for this, now it seems that it is finally here.

Abbott pledges disability support.
Opposition Leader supports the NDIS.

National Disability Insurance Scheme to start in 2013
Media release on the details of the start of the NDIS in 2013.

One from the archives Quick Hit Allie Brosh’s “Adventures in Depression”
Allie Brosh’s excellent pictorial of dealing with severe depression and living to tell the tale.

I read an interesting article today written about where the NDIS is potentially going wrong, and things it hasn’t taken into account. I can’t remember where I read it now, but if that rings a bell with you, please drop the link into comments. Thx.

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1. Quick Hit: Allie Brosh’s “Adventures in Depression”
2. Blogging Against Disablism Day 2011
3. Can I have a seat? Blogging Against Disablism Day, 2009

Unborn babies given recognition in new laws

Causing the death of an unborn child will be viewed similar to murder by courts as part of new laws the state government wants to bring in.[…]

And today the Australian Medical Association has jumped on the fetal personhood bandwagon, mostly to feed the flames of their disgust at women choosing their place of birth, with a side serve of pushing the criminalisation of women’s alcoholism:

Charge reckless mums: doctors’ union:

“Doctors want the State Government to consider criminal penalties when unborn babies are negligently endangered in homebirths or by mothers who take drugs or drink excessively.

Australian Medical Association WA president Dave Mountain said there should be penalties to encompass the “wild extremes” of homebirths, foetal alcohol syndrome and unborn babies affected by their mothers’ drug use.

“We’re talking about when people choose to proceed with a homebirth when it’s clear that there is an extreme danger to the baby and particularly when that’s encouraged by people who should know better,” he said. “There should be circumstances where people who actively encourage endangerment of the baby in that situation are held to account.”

Dr Mountain said pregnant women who took alcohol or drugs to excess knowing it would harm their unborn child should also be held criminally responsible.

“If you feed a child alcohol or drugs you would expect to be prosecuted,” he said.[…]“

What’s “to excess”? Why, exactly, should pregnant alcoholics be thrown in jail, and what purpose will that serve? How about smokers? How about people who eat raw salad without washing it first? How about people who have a whole glass of wine, or even two? How about people who take medications which are relatively (or absolutely) contraindicated in pregnancy? How about people who exercise “too much” to the point of their body temperature rising significantly? How about people who gain more than the industry-sanctioned amount of weight in pregnancy (which, for very fat people, is zero kilograms)? How about people who haven’t actually taken that pregnancy test yet, but their period is late or who have some pregnancy symptoms, who drink more than the “recommended” amount of alcohol (which, currently, “officially”, is zero)? How about people who reach for that second or third cup of coffee? How about people who make informed decisions to decline certain obstetric interventions?

When I was pregnant, I was in at least six of those categories. Yes, I “fed” my “unborn child” alcohol and drugs, and I gained weight in pregnancy – in fact, I worked pretty damn hard to gain weight despite my hyperemesis, so that sure counts as “knowingly” – and I drank coffee. But they won’t come for me. You know why? I’m white. I’m middle-class. I had an obstetrician who supported (and often encouraged) my decisions. I don’t look like one of THOSE women.

A newsflash to the AMA and the WA Liberal Party: A fetus is not an “unborn child” or a “baby” unless its host says it is. And it should never be a person in the eyes of the law. You know why? Because then these words:

Dr Mountain said the AMA was reassured by Mr Porter’s commitment that the legislation would not affect WA’s abortion laws.

would be completely meaningless. And now, we know that these attempt at reassurance are completely empty, coming from you. Dave Mountain, when you refer to “unborn children” as persons, when you deny us sovereignty over our own bodies, when you claim that legal activities should become illegal as soon as there’s an embryo inside us: we do not – we cannot – believe that you care about abortion rights. We cannot believe that you care about the rights of the people right in front of you.

Western Australians with uteruses, and our allies, should be afraid – and angry.

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Related posts:

1. WTF OTD: stillbirths in USA lead to murder charges against the pregnant women
2. Franchising the Womb: Selling Fetal Imaging
3. Alcohol and Breastfeeding: NHMRC buys into abstinence-only messaging

Pink Ribbons, Inc: Capitalizing on Hope

The film depicts an alarming disconnect between the overwhelming corporate and social success of the pink ribbon campaign and the fact that the filmmakers determined only 15 per cent of monies raised go to research prevention, and five per cent to research environmental causes of breast cancer.
[...]
Quebec director Lea Pool, an award-winning feature filmmaker, thinks the solidarity of women, forged through the women’s movement, is being exploited. “When I feel we are being hijacked in a way, co-opted by all the big business, this for me is unacceptable.

“I don’t say people should stop raising money,” she says in a phone interview from Toronto, shared with [producer Ravida] Din. “We have to be more careful how we do this.

The pinkification of cancer fundraising and pinkwashing globally diverts generous people’s donations away from the organisations doing most of the work towards organisations who are just better at marketing. Does this sound like the best use of donors’ money? Meanwhile the corporations get a huge PR boost for donating cents per sale when going pink generates megabuck boosts in their revenues.

And what about all the non-pinkified cancers? By dominating the cancer fundraising landscape, pink ribbons divert attention and thus donations (and the research/screening/treatment those donations provide) from other cancers which affect just as many people. Compassion fatigue sets in when potential donors feel that they’ve already “done their bit for cancer” with pink ribbon campaigns and hardly pay attention to other cancer fundraisers.

Those who donate their time and money for causes they believe in deserve better than having their generosity exploited by organisations and corporations who donate far less than their publicity would have you think. It’s not just Komen in the US who does this – they’ve been so successful that they’re copied all around the world.

The documentary, and much other work in this area, was inspired by Samantha King’s book, Pink Ribbons, Inc.: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy.

In Pink Ribbons, Inc., Samantha King traces how breast cancer has been transformed from a stigmatized disease and individual tragedy to a market-driven industry of survivorship. In an unprecedented outpouring of philanthropy, corporations turn their formidable promotion machines on the curing of the disease while dwarfing public health prevention efforts and stifling the calls for investigation into why and how breast cancer affects such a vast number of people. Here, for the first time, King questions the effectiveness and legitimacy of privately funded efforts to stop the epidemic among American women. Pink Ribbons, Inc. grapples with issues of gender and race in breast cancer campaigns of businesses such as the National Football League; recounts the legislative history behind the breast cancer awareness postage stamp—the first stamp in American history to raise funds for use outside the U.S. Postal Service; and reveals the cultural impact of activity-based fund-raising, such as the Race for the Cure. Throughout, King probes the profound implications of consumer-oriented philanthropy on how patients experience breast cancer, the research of the biomedical community, and the political and medical institutions that the breast cancer movement seeks to change.

Hat tip to Bellesouth’s great post laying out Why you should have boycotted Komen before this week, which links to the even more informative Think Before You Pink campaign’s website.

from Think Before You Pink: Critical Questions to Ask Before You Buy Pink – I’ll just list the questions here with my own brief summary of why it matters, go there for a fuller background on the questions.
1. How much money from your purchase actually goes toward breast cancer? Is the amount clearly stated on the package?
(Is it what you consider a reasonable amount, or is it insultingly small?)
2. What is the maximum amount that will be donated?
(Has the corporation capped the donation, has that cap already been reached, thus will your purchase actually contribute to the cause?)
3. How are the funds being raised?
(Does the corporation send money on from your purchase directly? Or do you have to mail in proof of purchase? Is the donation more than the cost of the stamps?)
4. To what breast cancer organization does the money go, and what types of programs does it support?
(Research? Screening? Treatment? Established and already well funded? New and innovative? Where exactly?)
5. What is the company doing to assure that its products are not actually contributing to the breast cancer epidemic?
(Many companies whose products have been linked to higher cancer rates invest heavily in the pink ribbon promotions. Should their cynicism be rewarded?)

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Related posts:

1. Pinktober is upon us
2. Three Examples of Rape Culture in Nice Guy(tm) Breast Cancer Activism
3. Pink and blue. I’ve been web-shopping.

So really, what is going to make me live longer – getting fit at the size I am at and allowing myself to enjoy food, or obsessing over every single calorie for the rest of my life?*

There is also a lot of unpacked privilege in the weight loss debate. As one of the people mentioned in the article says – her calorie counting is somewhat easier because her children are grown and she is retired and can take the time necessary to do the large amount of exercise and diet planning every day that is necessary for her to be able to maintain her current weight after her weightloss. It does not take into account finances, ableness, caring responsibilities or any other circumstances (apart from childcare and work) that may make it more difficult for someone to follow this regime. So is this what the 5% do to maintain long term weight loss? Is the ability to maintain weightloss also about invisible privilege?

SotBO: It’s all about me! This may not reflect your personal situation, nor is it intended to.

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1. Quick Hit: Silencing Tactics
2. Terminal Eye Roll again
3. Quick Hit: Read This