Posts by Deborah
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Steve Barnes is now very fucking banned.
Well, that makes it easier for me to comment here again. It's a shame that we've lost some other women from this site in the meantime.
To be very clear, I totally agree with the final thing that tipped you over into banning him too. Stephen, I'm sorry that you had to see all that nastiness, and thanks for deleting it, Russell.
-
Speaker: Talking past each other:…, in reply to Sacha,
It interests me how a conversation about reducing the availability of sugar turned into that.
It was because we can't talk about obesity as some kind of abstract, out there kind of thing. Obesity is located here, in our bodies and in our very existence. When we talk about combatting obesity, we talk about combatting actual real people. And those actual real people feel very targeted and demonised and threatened.
And as Danielle commented above, that's without even considering the particular resonances here for women, and for working class people.
-
Speaker: Talking past each other:…, in reply to Sacha,
Not feeling oppressed here. Just disgusted by passive-aggressive discussion styles.
Sacha, this would in fact be an exemplar of passive aggression, and this type of response is exactly why many women I am in contact with don't participate here.
-
It's a very challenging thread. And a scary one for some people to participate in, even though they have important things to say.
I think it would be silencing to close it down permanently. Taking the evening off seems like a reasonable option, but closing it down altogether does seem, well, as though it's not permissible to have a conversation about fatness and fat people.
-
Speaker: Talking past each other:…, in reply to Russell Brown,
The American Medical Association officially deemed it a disease in 2013, although not without controversy.
Here's some of that controversy: an article in Nature about the problems with calling obesity a disease.
Perspective: Obesity is not a disease
Obesity warrants medical as well as cultural legitimacy and respect, but needs not be a disease to earn them. Calling obesity a disease contradicts the functioning of our bodies, and implies a blame residing there. But the blame for hyperendemic obesity, and its best remediation, resides not within bodies that work as they ever did, but all around, with the collective actions of the body politic.
-
Speaker: Talking past each other:…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Please, stop using the word “obesity”.
I have an on-going, low level campaign in my party to stop using this word. I didn't mean to direct that remark at just the people writing and commenting here.
It's a finger wagger word, and people feel targetted by it. It has the rhetorical structure of, "Oh, we don't me you, dear. It's your fat we don't like." As if a person can somehow be separated from their body.
I'm hopeful that if we stop talking about the war on obesity, and start talking about the war on fat people (I'm feeling a little ill just typing those words), then we cut down on the horrible language stigmatising fat people and telling them that they're the ones at fault, and start focusing on health and healthy ways of living, and healthy ways of designing our communities and patterns of work and the like.
Regarding diabetes, and weight, skinny people get diabetes too, and there's on-going research into the obesity paradox. I don't know enough to do anything more than google "obesity paradox and take a look at what seem to be the more reliable sources there.
Point is: this stuff around fatness and fat people and health is incredibly complex, and any public policy solutions may need to be similarly complex. And in the meantime, it would be good to stop stigmatising fat people.
-
Please, stop using the word “obesity”. We’ve used it as a way to distance ourselves from people. Living, breathing, caring, hurting, people. Start talking about a war on “fat people”, and then at least we’re being honest about what we’re doing. We're othering people, and telling them they’re immoral and not worthy to be among us. Seriously, replace “obesity” with “fat people”, and see if you’re still comfortable with what you’re saying.
I’m in favour of a bit of regulation here, rather than the more diffuse mechanism of taxes and price signals. And a bit of regulation / public provision of walkable suburbs, playing spaces, reasonable employment with a livable wage, all the things that make it possible for people to be fit and healthy, rather than worrying about policing their size.
-
Why not incentivise Aucklanders and new migrants to move to other centres.
That's already starting to happen. Marton, in Rangitikei (25 minutes south of Whanganui, 35 minutes north of Palmie North) is starting to attract people moving south. Lovely houses, all the amenities you would want in a town, cheap housing. Same story for Feilding. Even Taumarunui is experiencing a bit of Auckland-escape growth, according to a real estate agent I had a talk to last time I was up that way.
We just need it to happen faster, for the sake of Auckland, and for the sake of regional NZ.
-
So this money comes into the country. Sits in a trust. No income is made in NZ therefore no tax is paid.
Actually, the money doesn't even need to come into the country. It can all be held overseas, and the only connection here is the NZ trustee.
-
Lovely post, Rob. Thank you for sharing this.