Mind Your Own Fat

Jumpin' Jehoshaphat! How low will Fox News go? The attacks on the person of Dr. Regina Benjamin, President Obama's nominee for Surgeon General, are inconceivable. Too fat to be Surgeon General? Too fat?!?!

So, let's talk about fat. Really talk about it. Oprah does. Why not the rest of America?
We are notoriously obese as a society. There are health consequences to carrying excess weight, to be sure, but what no one is addressing are the genuine, extremely personal causes of fat.
There are myriad reasons people carry excess (whatever that means?) weight. Try these ...

Genetics.

Medication.

Lack of exercise.

Lack of proper nutrition.

Oh yeah, and over-eating.

There's also a spiritual reason for carrying excess weight: Protection.

In 27 years of counseling, I have worked with many people who are unhappy with their weight. A lot of them experienced invasion of their boundaries as children. I mean invasion like emotional abuse, rage, addiction, sexual abuse, bullying. It is not unusual for the psyche of that person to create a physical barrier of protection.

These are not undisciplined people. These are not crazy people. These are not usually over-eaters. Instead, they once found themselves in an untenable situation, created a coping skill that may or may not have worked at the time, and haven't yet realized that said skill-set is no longer serving them.

Fox News' embarrassing derision of the phenomenally-accomplished Dr. Benjamin says a whole lot more about Fox News and their desperation to dis anything Obama-driven than it does about Dr. Benjamin. She is a compassionate doctor dedicated to serving under-served populations in our country.

Further, just as Oprah is the poster child for women who struggle with weight issues (note that Ms. Winfrey also suffered a drastic invasion of boundaries as a child), why isn't Dr. Benjamin the PERFECT poster icon for the office of Surgeon General? In order to have accomplished all that she has in her life, Dr. Benjamin has to have taken care of her health. There's no other way she could have gotten all that good stuff done!

I know nothing about Dr. Benjamin's personal habits. Maybe she lives on Twinkies, but I highly doubt it. I suspect instead that her weight has a reason all its own, and that said reason is none of our business.

Of note here is the meaning of the name of that Hebrew King I mentioned above: Jehoshaphat. It translates as Jehovah is the judge. Not to muddy the waters of this national travesty by adding God into the mix, but who died and made Fox News the best judge of fat?

Fox News, mind your own fat!

For spiritual nourishment, visit susancorso.com.

 

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Comments

[Conk]

10:41 AM on 07/28/2009

Everyone keeps framing the issue around weight loss. If the focus were on health, weight would take care of itself! But no, 'they' want to keep us confused with 5,000 different diet plans and one million weight loss products. All the while selling us junk in the name of food. No education, no loss of weight......period.

And remember, fat does not make you fat. Sugar makes you fat.

[Idytme]

11:30 PM on 07/27/2009

My mother who is in her 70's plays tennis at least three times a week, she also works a 30 hour work week and eats like a bird. She is obese but I have no idea why. As a lab tech she can check her own blood values at any time and her thyroid is fine. One of my sisters is a doctor of internal medicine. She is a perfect candidate for a low carb diet, but being a physician, thinks it is all a "fad". However, if I were sick in the hospital, there is *no one* I'd rather have take care of me besides my sister. (although she wouldn't because of conflict of interest, ethic rules). She is incredibly intelligent, intuitive, and has won awards for best liked by patients and by nurses, although that means nothing if she also wasn't an excellent doctor who figures out intricate medical problems like a great internal medical specialist who is also a hospitalist should.
However, I do question if a family medicine doctor was advising on nutrition for a type II diabetic, if they were obese.
Certainly obesity has nothing to do with problem solving or intelligence or getting the best of care. I've known many nurses who eat because of how much emotional stress with patients they deal with at work. They are still excellent nurses.
Politics is politics, and it is nasty. Republicans seem to go for the throat, exploiting any perceived weakness.

[cucumber]

12:52 AM on 07/28/2009

She thinks "low carb" is a fad because it IS a fad. Vegetarians have lower body fat and better health than meat eaters, as a group, and they for the most part do not worry about carbs.

[Idytme]

01:52 AM on 07/28/2009

No, she thinks it is a fad because she is a carb craver and a meat eater. She has lost some weight by lowering some carbs but won't go all the way, and refuses to read any literature about the effects. We come from a family of genes that is carb sensitive and insulin sensitive. Two of the three of us sisters have greatly improved our health by eating a low carb diet, she just won't believe nutrition will do all the positive benefits for your body that it can, because she had no training for that in medical school, and is so busy keeping up with medical "stuff" that she can't take the time to educate herself. And probably doesn't want to give up the cereal and sugar laden granola bars. Sugar gives its own high, and that high can be as, or more destructive than drugs.
But still, in almost any medical emergency, I would want her as my doctor. Not only is she excellent at the hospital but she passed her internal medical doctor tests in the 98 percentile. Just goes to show that someone cannot know everything about everything. It is why doctors specialize.

[From the Raft]

11:08 PM on 07/27/2009

In living a very long life I have surmised people who "know it all," both young and old, tend to be fat, very fat.

I've lived with theory for over 50 years and wonder if there's anything to it, although the Republicans have been giving some pretty clear signals lately!

[benne]

10:32 PM on 07/27/2009

At one time, homosexuality was considered an illness -- a deviance from the norm. Now, it is seen as a normal variance, as we understand that human sexuality is more diverse and varied than we once assumed. Someday, the same reasonable approach will be applied to weight. Of course, we have a greater diet/fitness/spiritual industry out there that depends on this hatred, so we might have to wait longer.

[LMPE]

08:04 PM on 07/27/2009

As long as we're talking about weight problems, let's mention Rush Limbaugh. His body mass lent its name to an Al Franken book.

Moreover, Matt Taibbi wrote an article in Rolling Stone last year describing his trip to the Republican National Convention. Apparently, a lot of the delegates were quadruple-chinned southerners.

Oh, and then there's Dick Cheney.

See what I'm getting at?

[111]

04:57 PM on 07/27/2009

The obesity epidemic is a scam being run by multi-billion dollar businesses and industries - the food industry, the diet industry and the medical industry.

Junkfoodscience

does an excellent job at exposing the truth

http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/

[Irksome]

02:27 PM on 07/27/2009

Dr. Benjamin's detractors are probably more disturbed about the thought of a Surgeon General who has repeatedly demonstrated compassion and a commitment to providing health care to poor people than they are about her weight, but for some reason they think it's perfectly okay to attack her for being chunky.