Happy Juneteenth!

The Circus and the Sideshow, Continued

Yesterday, we considered the words of some newsworthy figures in the culture who have used controversial weight-control drugs — or not. Here are more, illustrating a bold willingness to speak on a divisive topic, and possibly acknowledging that as Hollywood figures they are widely imitated and expected to set a good example.

It’s impossible not to notice that the overwhelming majority of speakers on this topic are female. As previously mentioned, celebrity rank can change from one moment to the next, so they are quoted in alphabetical order. All these references are from either People.com or TooFab.com.

Charles Barkley — “I started at 352 and I’m down to 290.”

Dolores Catania — Told an interested reporter that, like all her co-stars, she too was on a weight-loss drug.

Bethenny Frankel — Cussed a lot in an Instagram video where she also rechristened one of the drugs “NOzempic” and warned followers to shun it, especially if they tend toward body dysmorphia and eating disorders.

Golnesa “GG” Gharachedaghi — Gained some weight from taking steroid injections for a health issue, had a hard time losing it, and tried out one of the new drugs.

Chelsea Handler — Was once prescribed Ozembic, before all the fuss broke out, by her anti-aging doctor, just to lose five pounds. To users she says, “Wishing you all well and hope you have doctors that care about more than your size. It’s gonna backfire, something bad is gonna happen.”

Jameela Jamil — Warns that these drugs do not permanently banish weight, and begs women not to shame themselves just because they don’t look like the stars at an awards ceremony. “There is little to no discussion of the side effects in any advertising online. I’m deeply concerned, but I can’t change any of your minds because fat phobia has our generation in a chokehold.”

Lala Kent — Believes we all need to become better examples for the children, and advises people who are using these drugs to stop. “Enough already.”

Gina Kirschenheiter — Reports that she is not on a weight-loss drug, but lost weight by giving up alcohol, and also is photographed by experts who know how to pose their subjects well.

Katie Maloney — “Do what you want to do… Understand the risks… Follow your bliss.”

Jillian Michaels — Says there are a lot of negatives to taking Ozempic, and she helped several friends transition off it. And the weight will return.

Sharon Osbourne — Battled one of the main side effects, nausea, for four months and lost 30 pounds. Apparently, she then stopped, and told an interviewer that there is no quick weight loss recipe for what is basically a mental problem.

Patti Stanger — “I’m on the shot. I’m gonna tell you the truth. I went on semaglutide, which is the ingredient in Ozempic. I got the worst acid reflux. And I was not feeling good. So, I stopped three weeks in.” But then, she went on Mounjaro.

Amy Schumer — Tried Ozempic for weight loss, and felt so lousy she couldn’t even play with her son. “But I immediately invested because I knew everyone was going to try it.” She then opted for liposuction. “Everyone has been lying saying, ‘Oh smaller portions.’ When I got lipo, I said I got lipo.”

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Stars Who’ve Spoken About Ozempic — and What They’ve Said,” People.com, 05/01/23
Source: “Stars Who Have Spoken Out On Weight Loss Drug Trend In Hollywood,” TooFab.com, 03/27/23
Source: “Amy Schumer Says She Tried Ozempic, Tells Others ‘Lying’ About It to Be ‘Be Real’ About Their Weight Loss,” People.com, 06/09/23
Image by mahmoud99725/CC BY-SA 2.0

The Circus and the Sideshow

One might suppose that the subject of the new weight-loss drugs had been exhausted by now. But no! A flow of news continues to cascade into the general consciousness, and a spectacular number of celebrities have had their say about Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro. The differences between the particular drugs have been explored here, but they all work on the same principle.

To be fair, individuals who were originally prescribed the GLP-1 agonists to treat Type 2 diabetes and other hard-to-manage conditions seem pretty happy with the improvement in their lives, especially considering the alternative. It’s the professional pretty people, who like to eat their metaphorical cake and retain their waistlines too, who will not, metaphorically speaking, put a sock in it.

Are their motives pure?

Discussions around weight and body size tend to permeate many aspects of the zeitgeist, for all kinds of reasons, which is why our kids can get so messed up by the constant attention and scrutiny. Traditionally, joining the chorus of voices about a current news trend can be a career booster for someone teetering on the edge of stardom. If nothing else, it increases name recognition and the cumulative number of online mentions.

When established figures who don’t need the publicity also chime in, they tend to be granted another kind of attention, with an extra tinge of credibility. The situation is confused further by the fact that people in different age groups tend to have varying ideas about whom they consider worth listening to.

The moral elephant in the room

But first, because they belong to a distinct category, let’s listen to the people whose primary concern is the shortage of product, caused by the enormous publicity. Julia Fox says “I would never do that. There are diabetics that need it.” Meghan McCain says, “There’s a clear moral issue here. It’s hard to take a drug because swimsuit season is around the corner, while others need it to stay alive.”

The shortage will not last, because pharmaceutical corporations have unlimited resources and a determination to give the people what they want. So these voices will soon sound quaint, and in a world where there are enough drugs for everybody, the upcoming generation will wonder what all the fuss was about.

As with any other profession, there are a certain number of celebs who actually have a health problem that the drug was designed to treat. Rosie O’Donnell was grilled about recent weight loss, and explained to the press that yes, she was using one of the controversial drugs to treat her Type 2 diabetes.

Some energetic and highly motivated celebrities find it offensive to be suspected of using pharmaceuticals when they actually put in a lot of sweaty work. Kyle Richards told the press of her frustration, never having taken a diet drug, and after having exercised with extreme determination to achieve an all-natural weight loss. And Khloé Kardashian is quoted as saying, “Let’s not discredit my years of working out. I get up 5 days a week at 6 AM to train.”

(To be continued…)

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Stars Who’ve Spoken About Ozempic — and What They’ve Said,” People.com, 05/01/23
Source: “Stars Who Have Spoken Out On Weight Loss Drug Trend In Hollywood,” TooFab.com, 03/27/23
Image by Tim Dorr/CC BY-SA 2.0

A Book That Doesn’t Do Much, Continued

Mr. Lambert asks the rhetorical question, “Why on earth would anybody want to stay fat?” and the practical question, “Why do you so often do things that are counterproductive to that?” and the deeply challenging question, “Do you believe that deep down you don’t deserve to be thin?”

True, there is a need to identify conflicting motivations, because cognitive dissonance is never helpful. Also:

DO YOU REALISE THAT YOUR PROBLEM MAY NOT STEM FROM YOU BEING FAT AT ALL? As human beings we possess anchors deep within us. This book lets you know that power and respect are gained through attitude and behavior, regardless of your size.

Huh? Anchors? Maybe it is not necessary to lose weight, but only to learn a few authoritative body language moves, to keep people in line. At any rate, this book might, possibly, be someone’s idea of a joke. Or maybe it was conceived as the ideal “passive income” vehicle.

Exploitation much?

On February 9, 2010, then-First Lady Michelle Obama announced the Let’s Move! campaign. Lambert’s Why Not Stay Fat? hit the street 10 days later. The book seems to have been first published as a PDF file, so a rush job could conceivably been done within that timeframe. It was almost as if someone had responded to an ad that said “Want to become rich and famous? Cash in on a promising current trend!”

Almost 10 years later, employing a trick that is a startling reversal of traditional marketplace dynamics, used copies of the book were offered for almost twice the cost of new copies. There were no Amazon star ratings or customer reviews, nor are there today. This is the author’s choice, but why? Who doesn’t want a major selling platform to show their reviews? From the advertising material and store page, we have some clues about what’s inside. Oddly, the subject tags are Cooking, Photography, and Education.

Lambert also published another book on the psychology of weight loss. From the ad, it sounds like the standard strategies that are shared by numerous media outlets for free. But the copy is pitched toward the acquisition mentality. It says, “Regain your sense of self control by investing in this book, and you will be rewarded by the investment you make to your health via natural weight loss.” The word “invest” is there twice in the same sentence! The book is quite pricey and again, there don’t seem to be any reader reviews.

Anyway, getting back to “Why Not Stay Fat?” — the title is a philosophical question of impossible scope. People have spent decades in towers or caves pondering such matters, and have earned advanced degrees by addressing them. Why do anything? It is an existential conundrum worthy of consideration. One approach might be, “Why Not NOT Stay Fat?”

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Why Not Stay Fat? — Overweight? So What,” Booktopia.com.au, 2010
Source: “Pubmatch Profile,” Web.archive.org, 2016
Source: “Psychology Of Weight Loss,” Dymocks.com.au, undated
Image by Zorilla/CC BY 2.0

A Book That Doesn’t Do Much

The cover art: Why is the one lady peeking up the other lady’s skirt? The question: “Why Not Stay Fat?” is hardly a question worthy of Socrates and Aristotle. The response is usually the same — “Why not, indeed?” — because to change one’s habits is, for most humans, an excruciatingly painful effort, and one not undertaken lightly.

The slogan: “Be happy with who and what you are.” Unlike the cover designer, we use — correctly — the double, not single, quotation marks. Was the editor taking a nap?

“Be happy with who and what you are.”

The advice offered by the book’s cover is widely agreed to be a legit concept. In one of those weird paradoxes of human psychology, self-acceptance is recognized as the first step toward any possibility of achievable or lasting change. There is no reason to quarrel with that basic premise. On the other hand, the line is deceptively and dangerously simplistic. Surely, a person who self-identifies as a child abuser or a serial killer is not supposed to be happy about it.

More useful is the concept of “Accept who and what you are.” Acceptance sets a much lower bar than happiness. This is why in AA meetings (although it is not mandatory) a speaker will probably stand up and say “My name is Bill Wilson and I’m an alcoholic.” They don’t say, “… and I’m happy to be an alcoholic.”

Some people want to become different. Some want to stay as they are, but quit caring about the fact that others want them to be different. As a vintage television series used to say, “There are eight million stories in the Naked City.” Still, in the field of healing, despite the ubiquitous presence of unique stories, it is almost universally acknowledged that acceptance is the necessary precursor to change.

Run that by me again…

These days, it is very hard to distinguish satire from reality. With all due respect to authors everywhere, sometimes you just have to wonder why a book exists. The one pictured here is by Wayne Lambert, who appears to be a Westerner based in the Middle East. Full disclosure: Childhood Obesity News has not seen the book. Discussion of it is based on the public relations materials, dispersed to the relatable public under the author’s byline.

A good first impression has not been made. That rough draft was not proofread even once. Another self-generated puff piece was replete with grating repetition and regrettable (ranging to woeful) lapses in grammar. The CAPS LOCK key stayed stuck for whole sentences at a time. Some information that was researched years ago has vanished from the internet, like www.wholebodyworkshop.com. So it cannot be proven that there was once a version of this piece that ended… “I have already self published all the books that I have wrote.”

In a piece currently still posted, another simplistic idea appears: “My philosophy is to stick to the basics and the rest will follow very easily with little effort… just focus!” As Grandma used to say, if it were that easy, everyone would be doing it. Some people are born without the ability to focus, and others have it knocked out of them, one way or another, by the vicissitudes of life.

(To be continued…)

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Pubmatch Profile,” Web.archive.org, 2016
Source: “Why Not Stay Fat?,” Booktopia, undated
Image from Booktopia

A Book That Explains a Lot

Roxane Gay’s memoir, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body, was not written with the aim of motivating the reader. When the author toured in support of the book, a college newspaper wrote,

Her struggles aren’t meant to be a success story, but a true story to give people a sense that they aren’t alone… Gay sets the record straight from the beginning of her talk. The story of her body is not a story of triumph or motivation. It’s not a weight loss memoir either.

That audience motivation is not her purpose must come as a welcome relief to young adults who are always being counseled about what to do with their lives. Gay says,

I don’t want to pretend I’m on some triumphant, uplifting journey. I don’t want to pretend that everything is okay. I’m living with what happened, moving forward without forgetting, moving forward without pretending I am unscarred.

In the course of exorcising personal demons, a terribly difficult and challenging writing experience became a personal case study and a philosophy textbook. Gay’s observations about feminism and misogyny range widely and cut deeply. In the same way that a person with paralyzed legs must verify the existence of wheelchair ramps at venues, a person with super-morbid obesity has to check out the conditions before venturing forth into the world, and Gay exposes those potential problems to the reader.

She does not care for “reality” shows about makeovers and weight loss, or this world where female celebrities’ weights are “tracked like stocks because their bodies are, in their line of work, their personal stock, the physical embodiment of market value.” She does not love a society where, although fat people themselves cannot lawfully be made to disappear, it’s perfectly okay to wage war on the fat cells that just happen to live inside those people. She vehemently deplores the societal myth that “our truest selves are thin women hiding in our fat bodies like imposters, usurpers, illegitimates.”

What’s in there?

The fortunate humans who don’t cope with obesity in their own bodies or their own families usually do not have an accurate picture of what it’s all about. Here’s the tricky part — among the people who do struggle with obesity, they get that way from a lot of different causes. Some people write books about their “weight loss journeys.” Gay openly admits that while various words might describe her journey, “over” is not one of them.

The Atlantic reviewer Adrienne Green says the author gives readers “some emotional insight into the unrelenting nature of trauma.” And she doesn’t want to call herself a survivor because she doesn’t “want to diminish the gravity of what happened.” The more precise and accurate term is victim, and she claims it.

But what did happen? The origin story of her obesity goes back to a violent sexual assault at age 12. Tara Haelle wrote for the Association of Health Care Journalists,

I recommend “Hunger” to health journalists: Gay offers insight into experiencing two of the most incredibly challenging, complex and pressing issues of our time. It requires a far higher level of empathy, understanding and nuance than most issues about which we write.

After that event, the author wrote, she “ate and ate and ate in the hopes that if I made myself big, my body would be safe.” She needed to transform her physical self into “a safe harbor rather than a small, weak vessel.” In its vulnerability, the body had betrayed her, and the need to make it unassailable became her strongest drive. Eventually, the painful secrets came tumbling out:

My family’s constant pressure to lose weight made me stubborn, even though the only person I was really hurting was myself. The constant pressure made me refuse to lose weight to punish these people who claimed to love me but wouldn’t accept me as I was…

I was swallowing my secrets and making my body expand and explode.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body,” Harper, 2017
Source: “The Boldness of Roxane Gay’s Hunger,” TheAtlantic.com, 06/13/17
Source: “Towerlight News,” TheTowerlight.com, 10/09/17
Source: “Roxane Gay’s ‘Hunger’ a worthy, perhaps necessary, read for medical journalist,” HealthJournalism.org, 02/18/19
Image by Eva Blue/CC BY 2.0