Happy No Diet Day!

Ways to celebrate:

1. Take the I-Love-My-Body pledge. Better yet, print out a few copies and leave it in public places--on subway and bus seats, tacked to bulletin boards, tucked into bathroom mirrors. (I'm working on finding a way to upload the beautiful graphic version designed by Mary Brown and will post that shortly. Blogger doesn't like my files, apparently.)

2. Eat a cupcake. Better yet, bake a dozen and hand them around.

3. Buy your very own copy of Lessons From the Fat-o-Sphere by the inimitable Kate Harding and Marianne Kirby. (If you can get it from an independent bookstore, even better!)

What are YOU doing today? Send me your no-diet-day stories.

Kudos to Salon and Kate Harding

for this piece on the new study just out from England that may finally shut down the "Anorexia is the mother's fault!" argument. (You have to register on the site to see it, but you can get a free day pass.)

The study looks at brain development in utero, and reinforces the notion that genetics and neurobiology are the biggest culprits when it comes to why some kids develop eating disorders. As Harding writes:

Ian Frampton, a pediatric psychology consultant and co-author of a study to be presented at a conference at the Institute of Education in London this week, says, "Our research shows that certain kids' brains develop in such a way that makes them more vulnerable to the more commonly known risk factors for eating disorders, such as the size-zero debate, media representations of very skinny women and bad parents." The Guardian reports that based on "in-depth neuropsychological testing" on over 200 anorexia patients in the UK, US, and Norway, Frampton and his colleagues found "about 70% of the patients had suffered damage to their neurotransmitters, which help brain cells communicate with each other, had undergone subtle changes in the structure of their brains, or both." In the past, researchers often assumed that anorexia causes changes to sufferers' brains, but these findings suggest that it works the other way around.

One caveat: If you value your sanity, don't read the comments. Unless a huge surge of adrenaline would be a positive development in your evening.

*Full disclosure: Harding mentions Feed Me! in the piece. Thanks, Kate!

Win a copy of FEED ME!

UPDATE: We've got 149 entries. Woo-hoo! I'll be giving away 2 copies of the book!

Yep, I'm giving away a copy of Feed Me!: Writers Dish About Food, Eating, Weight, and Body Image, which I edited and which contains fabulous essays by writers like Caroline Leavitt, Joyce Maynard, Diana Abu-Jaber, Amity Gaige, Jenny Allen, Kate Harding, and many more. All you have to do to enter the drawing is send me your name and e-mail address before 1 p.m. on Monday, January 26. I will pick one lucky winner then.

To find out more about the book, click here and here. To read a digital galley of the intro and three essays, click here.

Good luck!

Passing the Roar

A couple of days ago, writer/blogger Lisa Romeo gave me a "roar" (thanks, Lisa!) with a directive to do two things: list three things I think are crucial to powerful writing, and "roar" at a few of my favorite and fearless writers.

My three requirements for powerful writing:
Move the story forward. Good writing, like life, doesn't stay still. It's gotta move. Don't linger. Keep going.

Less is more. I'm a poet, so I learned early on that shorter is almost always better--punchier, sharper, more vivid. Compress, compress, compress.

Sound and fury. Powerful writing lives in the ear as well as on the page. Read it out loud to yourself. The sound of the words carries part of the meaning and effect.

Now, on to the roaring part. I'm going to tag a few bloggers, since this is, after all, a blog.

Kate Harding. Kate's blog, Shapely Prose, wins the I-wish-I'd-written-that award. Kate's prose is lucid, compelling, and as much fun to read as it is to write. She's a fat activist, feminista, and all-around fascinating writer. Fearless? Ya mon. Go read her. You won't be sorry.

Sandy Szwarc. Sandy's blog, Junkfood Science, takes on all manner of sacred cows, from Big Pharma to Big Science and more. If you've ever read a news article that scared you--"Obesity is contagious," for instance--check it out on Sandy's site. She's blown open a lot of b.s.

Rachel over at The F Word. It's the internet age, so I don't even know Rachel's last name. But I do know that her trifecta of obsessions--food, fat, and feminism--makes for some powerful writing. We don't always agree, but I'm always interested in what Rachel has to say.

Laura Collins. The author of Eating With your Anorexic is one of the feistiest writers/activists I know. Her book, and her online parent forum, have saved many lives. She's not afraid to take on the powers that be.

Caroline Leavitt. One of the best essayists I know. And I'm not just saying that because she's got pieces in both my first and second anthologies, either. Caroline has a gift for writing personal narratives that hit home for others.

I could probably keep going. Maybe I'll do installment 2 tomorrow.

The war on fat, in someone else's words

I won't say where I found this, but this post was written in response to someone raising the question of whether, perhaps, obesity might not be a completely evil phenomenon:

"Obesity is unhealthy. There is no doubt about it. It increases the risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes (and subsequent problems with high blood pressure, kidney disease, and major foot problems, including multiple surgeries and amputations), stroke (partly secondary to the high blood pressure), arthritis (from the sheer weight on the joints), plus other medical and psychological problems. When it is also combined with smoking, which it often is, there is even more disaster.

It is a huge expense to society to have so many obese people with their medical problems. It is a preventable disease. People just need to eat less and exercise. They need more self-control.

To flaunt it as a nonpreventable problem is just not true. What has changed during the past 50 years is that people eat more and move less. Obese people want respect for their eating problems and acceptance. I think that as long as other people are able to control themselves and discipline themselves to exercise, then there will be contempt for those that cannot.

Also, I think that a lot of people resent the high cost of obesity. Health care would be a lot less if people just didn't eat double bacon cheeseburgers, fries and a Coke, then go out for ice cream or beer, and then sit and watch TV (or drink more beer, which has a lot of calories.)

Personally, I resent so much money being spent for accomodations and gastric stapling/bypass surgery because people want to gorge themselves constantly with fatty food!"

It's rare to see so many misconceptions and such hatred right out there in the open. Next you'll be telling us that fat people are responsible for global warming.

Personally, I resent the millions of dollars being wasted on ill-directed and ineffective "wellness" campaigns in schools and offices. And I resent the hell out of the ignorant assumptions behind your words.

So I'm going to exercise tremendous self-restraint (and you know how hard self-restraint is for a fat person!) and recommend that you educate yourself rather than simply parrot the anti-obesity rhetoric of our time. Start by reading Gina Kolata's new book, Rethinking Thin. Kolata is a well-respected New York Times science writer. She is also, if it matters to you--and I think it does--a thin person.

Then I'd suggest reading a little Paul Campos--he's also a thin person, though formerly fat. Then read this post at Kate Harding's fantastic blog.

Then come back and tell me how you feel about fat.

Another book the world doesn't need--gulp!

Thanks to Kate Harding for posting about the latest entry in the fat hatred sweepstakes--a joint project from two of my former favorite children's book authors. The book is The Gulps, and it features a lazy, gluttonous family who are constantly eating junk food and watching TV. Just like all the fat people I know in real life!

The Gulps was written by Rosemary Wells and illustrated by Marc Brown (of Arthur fame). May it die a speedy, painful death and be remaindered as quickly as possible.