Why talk radio sucks

I just learned Media Lesson 101: Never go on a talk radio show without asking who else is going to be on.

When the Dom Giordano Show emailed today to ask if I would come on the show this evening to talk about today's New York Times piece about the fatosphere, I figured it would be the usual five-minute radio interview, with time for a couple of comments about the piece and the fatosphere.

What they didn't tell me is that there was going to be another guest, a fitness trainer and "expert" whom they have on the show often.

Instead of a civil conversation, we had a lotta fatty mudslinging, complete with descriptions of waddling children, fatties who just want an excuse to be obese, etc. I was blindsided by the vitriolic assumptions that got tossed around. It was a classic exercise in thin entitlement and fat-bashing, all couched in the usual "Don't you know fat is unhealthy?" language.

I'm mad at myself for missing some opportunities, because my heart was banging away and my voice was shaking. Nothing like a shock jock to raise the adrenaline level. Not that it mattered--the research I was able to pull out of the air and cite (the 2005 CDC mortality study, for one) just sailed on by as if it didn't exist. And it didn't, you know, because of the waddling children and diabetic fatties who can't get off the couch. When I suggested that you can be healthy and fit even if you're fat, they practically laughed me off the show.

I feel badly about this--I could have done a better job of advocacy.

I hope the rest of you FA bloggers don't get blindsided like this. And I hope there was one person listening who heard a little something new, and might check it out.

Ugh. I'm heading upstairs to do some yoga. What an end to what a day.