Warning: This post contains a great deal of sex and violence

[beandelphiki]

The internet is annoying tonight. I'll provide you with some links to demonstrate.


When I logged on, this came up on my homepage: And so on and so on: Obesity 'socially contagious,' study finds

A landmark study has found that whether those closest to you are overweight or slender can significantly influence your own body shape and that of others in your social group - and that could have huge implications for public health measures to battle the growing obesity epidemic.

THIS JUST IN: DUMPING YOUR FAT LOSER FRIENDS AND HOOKING UP WITH SOME SKINNY PEEPS WILL MAKE YOU LOSE WEIGHT!

...And damned if the article don't say just that while assuring you, the reader, that this isn't the idea at all.

The article criticizes how having larger friends (I won't say "fat" in this case because I'm sure this includes people even I wouldn't consider fat) might relax your attitude toward bodies of various sizes and your own self-image, so that you aren't as bothered if you gain weight.

"In the past we've had this great stigma associated with obesity and overweight," Janssen said from Kingston, Ont. "But when you're around that all the time, it becomes the norm and it becomes more acceptable to you perhaps."

"And maybe it would contribute to weight gain or you're not as concerned if you are starting to put on the pounds, because . . . a lot of the people around you are looking like that as well."

With an estimated 60 per cent of Canadian adults being overweight (including 25 per cent who are obese), he said, "Obviously the stigma associated with obesity is going away."

...Except that I would say NOT, when this article refers to obesity as being "transmitted" as if it were a cold or the clap. WTF?



And in other news, look what LJ and Six Apart are doing THIS time (courtesy theclamsman) - the latest lj_biz post (note: several pages of comments, may load very slowly):

Just another clarification of our previous clarifications, that's all.

Seriously, what?

1. First they apologize for Strikethrough 2007, and promise to set things right, i.e. restore the targeted journals. Which they mostly seem to do.

2. Then they promise and swear that it will never, ever happen again.

3. Then they provide clarification after clarification of their policies. Which actually clarify...not much at all...and which don't seem to be different from the policies that led to Strikethrough in the first place. Except maybe they'll try actually READING people's bios next time.

4. Then (as theclamsman pointed out) after promising so many times to be good, they hold the Permanent Account sale.

5. Finally, just before everyone gets their HP books and are therefore avoiding the internet (credit again to the same clam-whatever guy for noting their timing), they come out with MORE clarifications:

They want to apply the fucking MILLER TEST to underage sex in fanfiction to decide if it's appropriate or not.

ON THE INTERNET.

WHAT. THE. HELL.

PLZ TO BE DEFINING "COMMUNITY STANDARDS" ON THE GODDAMNED INTARWEBZ, MR. BARAK.

You want community standards? I know where you can find some.

It's called:

F.A.N.D.O.M.

No, really.

Yeah, I know - greater fandom has fairly loose standards in general. (RPS, chan, non-con...the list goes on.) The standards vary from fandom to fandom as well.

But you know something, they're OUR standards. We fen are the ones IN the damned fandoms! WE are the ones that read the stories, WE are the ones who decide amongst ourselves what we believe has literary and artistic value, and WE are the ones who self-police when we believe something is obscene.

Which is not to say that everyone agrees on what's obscene in fanfic. There are some types of fic which are marginalized and considered squicky by most. Thing is, if there's an audience for it, then yeah - there will be a small corner of the internet for it.

But really, so what? The only people who read fanfiction are the fans. I have a really hard time believing that there's some pedo out there digging through fannish discussion posts on lj to find nuggets of Snarry chan. Come on now.


So some of fandom is upset over this. (At least, some of those who've caught wind of it, anyway.) Personally, I don't know that I'd be deeply worried just yet. (Witness self-reporting of an adult/minor NC-17 Snarry fic result in absolutely no action from LJ Abuse. We'll just have to see if that's their reaction when the heat isn't on them.)

What is mainly bothering me here is the fact that someone sees a need for this anti-obscenity stance to be voiced. That they felt they needed to call out fanfiction specifically. That, "we'll take down obscene material that's reported to us," in the TOS we all agreed to apparently isn't ENOUGH.

I'm sick of Six Apart throwing its weight around, really.

People on this site's staff have this striking resemblance to Canadian politicians. It's bizarre, really.

STANDARDS!

Comments

Re:

[beandelphiki.livejournal.com]

BLEH, I apologize. I was typing a reply to you last night, and in the middle of it...passed out cold. I woke up on the floor. It's, uh, been a long week. And still the weekend to go. Shoot me, please?

I had enough presence of mind to save what I was writing, so here we go.

*

Actually, I am far less inclined to believe these days that weight is much of a health risk at all.

A few months back, Scientific American Reports did a big story on the claims of books like The Obesity Myth. (Have you heard of/read that one?) Their conclusion: said claims are more truthful than they are out to lunch. Assuming I'm remembering this all correctly enough (I hope I am):

-Nearly all so-called "obesity experts" run weight-loss clinics, and they have huge influence in the narrow field of "obesity research."
-Even studies funded by the weight-loss industry do not tend to find more than minimal differences in health risks between those with "healthy" BMIs, "overweight" BMIs, and "obese" BMIs.
-The studies that appear to find a difference worth noting don't control for diet, exercise, etc. When various factors are controlled for, weight itself appears to have almost no statistically significant negative impact on health whatsoever.
-The BMIs at which there finally appears to be a [small] health risk due to weight: around 34 for whites, 38 for blacks. (How many people do YOU know with a BMI of 34? That's a very small portion of the population!)
-HOWEVER, there IS a statistically significant health risk for those with a BMI below 20 or so. Even the studies that are funded by the weight-loss industry find this risk. And yet, the lower bracket for "healthy" is set at 18.5. (Although I've actually noticed recently that some sources have raised that lower bar. Which is interesting.)
-All of your own last sentence there as well. Plus people in the "overweight" range recover faster from illnesses requiring hospitalization, and are less likely to die in the hospital.

...Basically, the data used to support the idea that being overweight OR obese is unhealthy is cherry-picked, exaggerated and even outright LIED about.

(I can't personally find any other explanation for the 18.5/20 BMI discrepancy besides plain lying about study results. And that both freaks me out and pisses me off.)

I agree with the first sentence of your second comment: the main health issues are diet - eating healthier, not necessarily less - and exercise. But we're all probably less inclined to eat well and exercise than we would be otherwise, because those things are tied so tightly to the concept of losing weight: something for which I think virtually everyone in North America has emotional baggage.

[hry2007.livejournal.com]

I dunno, I mean, there's quack research, but there's also a fair bit of legitimate evidence showing problems associated with obesity. Still, correlation =/= causation. The reason overweight people are often unhealthy isn't because of the excess fat, so much as the bad habits like poor diet and exercise that make them overweight.

Even with all that in mind, the diet industry for the most part isn't a solution, because it's mostly fueled by quick fixes and yo-yo dieting. The real solution involves addressing the social issues I mentioned, but that won't happen until politicians acknowledge the connections.