move aside, snarky fat chick coming through

[keryx]

For most of my recallable past, I've been more interested in alternative means of healing myself than doctoring. It's not just that the medical community hates fat folk, but that I think the medical community has been trained to hate people, period. And this is shown off particularly well by media coverage of the medical community (maybe the media hate people, too?).

There's a couple of articles about OMG! Pregnant Fat Women!, specifically how it's So Much More Dangerous for anyone 'overweight' (keep in mind, thanks to the CDC, this is now pretty much everyone) to get pregnant and have a kid. I'm not going to bother worrying today about how true that is or isn't. What gets me is the way doctors talk to the press about patients. For instance.

They need to be retrained for their own health, but you know what? They’re going to be raising kids. You don’t want them to teach their kids those same bad eating habits.

That's right. All fat people have terrible eating habits. And only the All Knowing Doctor can make us better, cause we're just too gosh golly darned stupid to take care of our own bodies, let alone the children. And we must think of the the children!

Coupled with the generally infantilizing "Ooo, aren't you cute! And with such a tiny, hormone-addled brain!" attitude that we as a culture tend to take towards pregnant women, I sometimes don't know how anyone can bear the thought of having kids at all.

Comments

[attrice.livejournal.com]

I actually heard some people talking a few weeks ago about how someone 'needed' to lose weight before she got pregnant b/c 'a newborn is hard work and you need to be in good shape.' Oh yes, because giving birth is only hard work if you're fat. Thin mothers with newborns often run marathons a week after giving birth. I forgot.

I'm always worried that if I do decide to have biological children one day, I'll run into all sorts of problems with clinic people etc because i'm fat.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't giving birth be harder work if you were also adjusting to significant lifestyle changes, too? These ideas just seem so preposterous to me.

I do confess to having thought about losing weight before a hypothetical pregnancy as a way to avoid getting freaked out by being more fat, but that's also absurd.

[fooltheworld.livejournal.com]

But then the doctors would like to slice us all open so how does that help us take care of our newborns? Ugh!

Umm ok

[anysia.livejournal.com]

I remember about 25 yrs ago, women were only 'supposed' to gain 15lbs durning pregnancy. And funnily enough, there was constant reports about how babies were being born underweight, full term, but preemie sized.

The crap of if you don't lose the baby fat (misnomer if I ever heard of one) within 6 months after giving birth, you stay fat is bullshit.

So, I guess when babies are born underweight, and women start losing their teeth again these braintrusts will once again rethink their edicts.

But I won't hold my breath.

Re: Umm ok

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Moreover, who cares if you stay slightly fatter after giving birth. It seems to me one of the stupider things about motherhood is this idea that your body shouldn't reflect this new, massive change to your whole life.

Not holding my breath, either.

[cyprinella]

All I know is that I'm going to have a tazer on hand for people *touching* me. I see it all the time! It's not your belly! Hands off! I feel rude even asking women that look like they're about to give birth today when they're due. ugh.

I could maybe see an argument for women having fertility problems to lose weight because body fat affects estrogen cycles and all that but once you're pregnant? Pfft, baby's probably as thankful for the energy reserves as you'll be with caring for a newborn.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

People get really huffy with pregnant women who don't want to be touched, too. Or they pull that "gee, feeling hormonally, aren't we?" thing - like it's totally normal to accept people invading your space and bossing you around, so if you can't tolerate that, it must be cause you're just crazy with hormones. Ew.

[examorata.livejournal.com]

Gah! Hate this! Hate hate! I've never been pregnant and I don't know if I ever will, but no one walks up and touches my belly now and by golly if I ever bear children no one will walk up and touch my belly then either! Dammit.

[cyprinella]

That makes a sense that's not. *sigh* And so, tazer.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Tazer, indeed. Clearly the only way to go.

[cutegaychick.livejournal.com]

Speaking for the entire Fourth Estate:

Yes, the media does hate people. All of them.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

I figured as much, and now I know the truth.

[firecat]

I've never had that much of a baby drive, but this sort of attitude did play a part in my choosing not to have children.

[libskrat]

*sends keryx eeevil childfree recruitment vibes*

*laughs eeevilly*

[cyprinella]

What do you get when you recruit to childfree? I know the lesbians have the toasters sewn up...

[keryx.livejournal.com]

maybe you get grownup sized footed pajamas?

[fooltheworld.livejournal.com]

Go to a midwife. I can't stand this society's attitude about pregnancy and childbirth. I'm left with frickin' PTSD (self-diagnosed, heh) thanks to how my births were handled.