Obesity Awareness: Are We Numb?

When you blog consistently for 8 years, funny stuff start to happen, like people sending emails asking you random things.

Can you review our product? Do you mind checking out my site? We’d love to host a giveaway for your readers.  Would you like to interview so-and-so-trainer-you-never-heard-of they have a book coming out. Blah, blah, blah. 

Hey, I’m not complaining. I’m flattered and honestly, it’s a good “problem” to have.

I do my best to keep up, responding to the ones that seem to have come from another human being. Sometimes conversations ensue.

Recently Malene of TravelTheUnitedStates.wordpress.com reached out about her Obesity Awareness campaign. I was intrigued, but see, I have an issue with the concept of “Obesity Awareness.”

In all honestly, I hate that word/phrase and the way traditional media flings it around shoving facts and figures down our throats.  So I  responded to Malene and thought I’d share our conversation here because I may be silly. I’m sure you’ll tell me. Right?

 Dear Roni, (Yes, I did dig to find your email address)

On July 20th I start to walk around the US, an 9000 mile walk, to raise awareness about obesity.

When was the last time you saw an obesity awareness event that does not blame those who weigh too much? And, when was the last time you saw that same event aim to inspire, empower and provide fabulous free resources to anyone who wants to lose weight?

This is what I will do, and I could so use your help!

First of all of course, because I want my message to get out there. It is important for me to aid in an constructive conversation about obesity. I want to challenge the stigma and the discrimination. I want to humanize people who deals with overweight. I want to empower everyone who wants to live healthier.

See, part of my walk is for fund raising. I am fund raising for LiveFit Revolution an 501(3c) charity that gives us all the resources we need to lose weight completely free of charge. I really want to see this amazing resource go to the next level.

I also have to admit that without fund raising, I don’t get to walk. I don’t have the cash to fund this myself so I need to raise the money to start walking.

I would be so grateful if you would consider featuring something about my walk on your blog and with your readers. As a blogger yourself, I am sure you know the struggles for new bloggers of getting what they write seen.

Here is my blog: https://traveltheunitedstates.wordpress.com/

Thank you so much in advance,

Malene

Note: Her joke about digging to find my email cracks me up as it’s hidden on my FAQ page in hopes of curbing some of the email. I put it there over 5 years ago and totally forgot about it.

My response…

Hi Malene!

What an adventure!! So exciting!

I think what you’re doing is great but honestly I tend to avoid promoting campaigns that tout obesity awareness. I talk a little about why in this post.. http://ronisweigh.com/2012/05/sharing-the-skinny-on-obesity.html

We have almost too much “obesity awareness” in the media. Once that word gets thrown in the mix I feel like people shut down. We’re callous to it as a culture. Numb.

I’d love your thoughts on this as I wold love to support you any way I can, but like I said, I tend to cringe at obesity campaigns. We don’t need more numbers thrown in our faces, we need to work on changing our culture in a much deeper way.

Just my thoughts,

Roni

After I hit send I realized I sound like a lunatic offering unsolicited advice and shoving my opinion down her face, but she responded anyway!

Hey Roni,

Thank you so much for getting back to me and for your thoughts on “obesity awareness campaigns”.

Your comment that you have no desire to fight it out with the “fat acceptance” people really stuck with me. I had one very uncomfortable situation with people telling me that I contributed to the stigma of obesity because I wanted to fight against it, and I really do not want to spend one single minute of this endeavor on that side of the political discussion. I am not quite sure how to avoid this, but your mentioning that concern just crystallized for me that I have to put some thought in to that. I would love to hear something about how you avoided that conflict, because as mentioned I fell full on, headfirst into it a few days ago.

You are right that we see a lot of conversation about the “obesity epidemic” in the media, but I really think those conversations are very unhelpful. In fact, I think they increase the stigma of being obese, and I want to challenge them on my walk, not perpetuate them. I am hoping that when it comes to the media the excitement of my adventure, the pure scale of walking 9000 mile, especially starting at my size, will add a different note to the discussion.

All of the obesity awareness I see from the media or other places focuses directly or indirectly on blaming people for the excess weight. As I experience the conversation attention is exclusively focused on what we eat and how we exercise.

My message is a little different. As someone who has struggled with my weight throughout my life I want to focus a lot of attention on taking away the stigma and the blame. I do this for a number of reasons:

If we feel guilty about our weight then the shame makes it harder to lose weightThe discrimination we face every single day in society due to our weight is – well – it is what discrimination always is.If we blame those who struggle with their weight for their troubles then we don’t have to care about it.Due to this discrimination there are exceedingly few fund raisers, or constructive help available for people with weight issues unless they can pay for the help themselves.The one biggest predictor of weight issues is poverty so a lot of overweight people can’t pay for the help they needI actually believe that issues with our weight are a LOT more complex than to just focus on diet and exercise.

My message is that obesity is a complex medical, hormonal, genetic, emotional and life style based condition. Since life style is only one aspect of obesity it makes no sense to blame the overweight person.

It is a condition that we can take full control over through our life style choices of healthy eating and exercise. It is my goal to empower myself and others to get better at making those choices throughout my walk. If we have the tendency towards obesity then the life style choices we have to make in order to fight back might have to be a little more regimented than someone who does not have that tendency, but really my main focus will be on healthy, unprocessed foods and the enjoyment of moving.

I don’t say this to focus away from personal responsibility. I think we all have the responsibility to live as healthy lives as we can. As mentioned above I just really believe that the discrimination and stigma of obesity has taken a horrible turn.

More than anything I want to take a fun, exciting adventure, involve as many people as possible and make weight loss and a healthy life style something that is approachable for anyone. I want to empower people to think of their dreams and to take steps to realize those  dreams. I want to put the joy into moving. I want to put pure pleasure into the best of normal foods. Life is hard for people who struggle with extreme obesity, and I want to show myself and everyone else that it is possible to stop struggling and start living. I want to show people who are obese as strong human beings with their own dreams and aspirations, abilities and strengths. I want to kick the yucky, overly processed, ever so disgusting foods to the curb and label them as the inedible yuck that they are.

So, should I use some other word than obesity awareness? It seemed to cover what my intention is, but I am open to suggestions.

Thank you again for your email. I really hope you find something in my email that speaks to you, and that you are willing to feature something about my walk.

The only way I knew how to respond was with more of my opinions. Geesh, I’m kind of a jerk.

I totally understand your message as it’s similar to my own. I just think when you throw the word “obesity” in there it…

Gives the media more fuel for their fire allowing them to skew it the way they always doGives the fat acceptance people something to be angry about (as you already experienced)Turns off folks who do see it solely as personal responsibility.

I’m not sure what the answer is or what else you could call it but I think it would help to come up with something catchy that avoids the dreaded “o” word.

Again, only my opinion. Feel free to ignore the crazy blogger lady. :)

She was so nice to reply again and her response gave me an idea.

Hey Roni,

I definitely appreciate your feedback. It seems I unknowingly, and unintentionally stepped in to a mine field. I will have to spend some time on fine tuning my message, and truly it probably won’t be completely fine tuned until I hit the road and start to interact with larger numbers of people. In the end, if I focus on my walk and on empowerment, I can’t go wrong. At the moment I do focus some one the numbers around obesity, because I feel it might help motivate some to get involved, but that is actually already starting to change as I am finally getting speaking engagements.

I suppose, in the end, this will be part of the conversation I aim to have, and that just might be a great thing.

In the mean time I would still be so grateful for any and all support you can offer me. I need to get the word out there about my walk to as broad an audience as possible.

Why not share our conversation here on the blog and see what you guys think!

She agreed and here we are.

Am I being too sensitive? Honestly, every time I see someone spewing obesity stats I cringe. My gut reaction is: How is this helping anyone? We can continue talk about it or we can DO something.

Malene is DOING something and I think that’s pretty cool.

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Lame Excuse Awareness Week

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

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Be A Bulldog (Ovarian Cancer Awareness mth post)

Thanks so much to Abbe for sharing her story:

September is Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month.

I started off writing this blog with all the difficult details of my experience 10 years ago with ovarian cancer. But then I decided that I really should just boil it all down to what I learned from being diagnosed with a rare type of ovarian cancer at the age of 35.

And what I learned was this: LISTEN to your body and be your own ADVOCATE.

Ovarian cancer is well known as the “silent killer”. It’s called that because often it’s found too late when the cancer has spread well beyond the ovaries and metastasized to various organs you can’t live without – such as the liver. Quite often women wake up from surgery to be told that the cancer has spread to distant organs and is growing in fluid that has built up in their abdomens. This fluid is called ascites and by the time this is found it’s hella difficult to beat ovarian cancer’s ass.  The good news is ovarian cancer is still rare among gynecological cancers. The bad news though is that if you get it, ovarian cancer is the toughest gynecological cancer to beat and the tests for early detection in a word…suck. No offense to all the researchers who have worked their butts off to create better tests over the last 10 years. But the truth is there is still nothing really equivalent to say…a mammogram…for early detection. This is why it’s all the more important for women to listen and connect to their bodies because truth be told…ovarian cancer does have some symptoms.

LISTEN TO YOUR BODY: In the months leading up to my cancer diagnosis I did not feel well. It was a knowing that I had a difficult time defining. Little did I know at the time that I was someone with strong intuition. It took a long string of doctors telling me that I was depressed before I landed in the office of a brilliant gynecological oncologist in Seattle who affirmed for me that indeed I had a strong and trustworthy intuition that very well could have saved my life.

A few months before my diagnosis I started having real, definable symptoms – pain on the right side of my abdomen, shortness of breath, a sudden urge to pee, dizziness and fatigue.  Having been told I was depressed I would try to tell myself that these symptoms were all in my head. I was a new mom and struggling with two little babies – of course I felt out of it! But the symptoms continued and I continued to LISTEN to them.

BE YOUR OWN ADVOCATE: I became a big complainer about the time my symptoms starting picking up. I kept making doctors appointments. I was determined to get someone to listen to me. I was feeling very fearful and anxious and my husband was at a loss for how to help me. He told me that if I wanted to feel better that it was best to talk to a doctor about my concerns. So that I did.

The gynecologist discovered that I had several cysts on my right ovary. He assured me that this was all nothing to worry about and that cysts by and large come and go and pose no danger. Yes, this is indeed true. Who doesn’t have a friend who hasn’t had a cyst? I tried to tell myself not to worry…but my body didn’t feel right. So I kept going back to the doctor only to be told my fears and worries were all in my head. But I persisted because contrary to what the doctors said my body was giving me all the signals that something was up and I honored it and listened.  It didn’t matter that the docs didn’t want to hear me. I kept talking. I became my own ADVOCATE – a bull dog – hell-bound and determined to take care of myself.

Grace finally came in the form of a 5-centimeter cyst that developed on my right ovary – large enough to finally warrant exploratory surgery. I was relieved that I would finally have some answers and wanted to believe the doc who said this surgery was just routine and the cyst looked normal and I had nothing to worry about! A one-hour surgery turned into three and I woke up to this: “You have cancer”.

I now shudder to think what my fate could have been had I not persisted in LISTENING to my body, being my own ADVOCATE and getting adequate care. Yes, I had cancer. But the saving grace for me was that it was found early – Stage 1 – and survival rates for ovarian cancer are similar to those of breast cancer when found early. When caught in its earliest stages, survival rates can be as high as 90 percent (ME!!)! The problem is nearly 75 percent of all ovarian cancer patients are diagnosed in advanced stages. And that has remained unchanged for the past 50 years.

Chemotherapy and a full hysterectomy have allowed me to survive for 10 years. I am cancer free at the moment and I am definitely a strong survivor!

I now spend my days attempting to get women to prioritize their health. Part of my work as a Wellness Coach is encouraging women to be in charge of their own bodies and advocating for themselves when they feel something is off.

Don’t be afraid to push for quality care if your body is telling you something is not right. LISTEN. Be your own ADVOCATE.  These two simple acts could save your life.

Signs and Symptoms of ovarian cancer:

BloatingPelvic or abdominal painDifficulty eating or feeling full quicklyUrinary symptoms (urgency or frequency)

Take Action:

These symptoms may be caused by ovarian cancer or by other less serious conditions. It is important to check with a doctor, preferably a gynecologist, about these symptoms if they are new and persist for 2-3 weeks, especially if you experience several at one time. Tests for ovarian cancers include a combination pelvic/rectal exam, CA 125 blood test and a transvaginal ultrasound. A Pap smear is NOT a test for ovarian cancer. If ovarian cancer is suspected, consult a gynecologic oncologist.

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