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a little bit obsessed with Erving Goffman right now

#goffman #sociology

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“In an experiment revealing the importance of having friendships, social psychologists have found that perceptions of task difficulty are significantly shaped by the proximity of a friend. In their experimental design, the researchers asked college students to stand at the base of a hill while carrying a weighted backpack and to estimate the steepness of a hill. Some participants stood next to close friends whom they had known a long time, some stood next to friends they had not known for long, and the rest stood alone during the exercise. The students who stood with friends gave significantly lower estimates of the steepness of the hill than those who stood alone. Furthermore, the longer the close friends had known each other, the less steep the hill appeared to the participants involved in the study. In other words, the world looks less difficult when standing next to a close friend.”

— my new favorite psychological study, done by Schnall, Harber, Stefanucci, and Proffitt and published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

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Ugh that post has gotten me thinking about fat acceptance in a way I haven’t in years. I’ve read more studies about weight and health than probably any other topic I’ve ever researched. And every time I see someone wail about health I am just like

Did you know that in post-mortem examinations there is zero correlation between weight and levels of arteriosclerosis and related diseases found?

Did you know that people with an overweight BMI have the longest life expectancy, that those with an “ideal” and an “obese” have about the same life expectancy, and that being “underweight” raises mortality rates more than being “morbidly obese”?

Did you know that losing weight and then gaining it back is worse for your heart than remaining at the weight you started consistently?

Did you know that 95% of people who lose weight do gain it back, and there has never been a single documented weight loss program that has been demonstrated to keep the weight off for five years or more in the majority or even a significant minority of people? Like, telling people to lose weight isn’t much use if we don’t know HOW to make that happen.

Like I have read The Obesity Myth by Paul Campos and Rethinking Thin by Gina Kolata and Big Fat Lies by Glenn A Gaesser (Ph.D!) And Fat!So? and several other books that I don’t own and so don’t remember all of their names I spent like four years reading every single study coming out and looking at the methodology and noting which ones had huge holes or terrible methods and which didn’t (the holes were almost always in the pro-weight-loss studies) and like

Big Fat Lies has 27 pages of bibliography. 27 pages worth of scientific citation. The book content itself is only 197 pages. That’s a page of references for every 7 pages of book. Reading the book is just reference after reference and study after study. Most of these doctors (like Linda Bacon, author of Health at Every Size) started out the same way. They wanted to use the scientific method to find a real weight loss program or health solution that worked and could be proven to work, and so studied everything they could about weight and fitness only to find out that we didn’t need weight loss in the first place. That all the studies calling for it were lacking or nonexistent. That weight and underlying metabolic health have very little relation. That the history of our relationship with health and obesity has little basis in fact and a LOT of basis in capitalism, politics, and fashion. No, really, the association between weight and health was first proposed by insurance companies looking for ways to charge people more by claiming risk. They also charged tall and short people more. And people with different skin colors. When they got in trouble for charging people for things they had no control over and had no bearing on their health, they set out to prove that weight was controllable and that fat was unhealthy to make money. 

These are also a lot of the same people who went on to invent the President’s fitness program, so if you went to public school you probably already hate them. 

Anyway, if you want a place to start reading about the issue, this article is a pretty good launching pad. 

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CPD just killed a fifteen year old child.

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i want to wake up and see that europe’s footballers have unionised and are on strike

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In many cultures, ethnic groups, and nations around the world, hair is considered a source of power and prestige. African people brought these traditions and beliefs to the Americas and passed them down through the generations.

In my mother’s family (Black Americans from rural South Carolina) the women don’t cut their hair off unless absolutely necessary (i.e damage or routine trimming). Long hair is considered a symbol of beauty and power; my mother often told me that our hair holds our strength and power. Though my mother’s family has been American born for several generations, it is fascinating to see the beliefs and traditions of our African ancestors passed down. We are emotionally and spiritually attached to our hair, cutting it only with the knowledge that we are starting completely clean and removing stagnant energy.

Couple this with the forced removal and covering of our hair from the times of slavery and onward, and you can see why so many Black women and men alike take such pride and care in their natural hair and love to adorn our heads with wigs, weaves, braids, twists, accessories, and sharp designs.

Hair is not just hair in African diaspora cultures, and this is why the appropriation and stigma surrounding our hair is so harmful.

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they’re so fucking soft, i love them

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so what about these sheets though? do they have to keep coming between us? oh, they seem unnecessary. they’re so stupid, i hate them. i hate them so much.

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I keep seeing such cool stuff about the wnba, think I’m gonna have to become a fan

wnba: #CountIt

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today taylor’s version of love story was released and i watched a new episode of tracy beaker - what year is it?

#taylor swift #tracy beaker

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i remember so vividly the first time i listened to love story. i was only nine but i connected with something about it almost instantly. i just remember playing it again and again on repeat. 

#taylor swift #love story #taylor's version #rambles #memories

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akdjfhdjsak

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something that has really started to get to me is this new trend of dogs in schools. to be clear i don’t really have a problem with it in itself, it’s just the idea that the school is suddenly really good on mental health if it has a dog in it. yes dogs can help mental health but why don’t we make fundamental changes rather than treat a knife wound with a sticky plaster?!?! *so angry*

#dogs in schools #mental health #rant

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can’t explain how much i love reputation. how iconic it is. how everyone who hasn’t listened to it properly thinks it’s this big angry album. when actually i think it’s such a romantic album. a really happy hopeful album. an album full of pride. she’s taking her power with no apologies. it’s so powerful and beautiful and uninhibited. i just really love it.

#taylor swift #reputation #rambles

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