SeaFATtle activists fight for acceptance of being overweight
National obesity debate is a double-edged sword

Thursday, August 5, 2004

By JULIE DAVIDOW
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

In a declaration aimed at reclaiming her body image, Martha Mestl will
proudly tell you she thinks of herself as "supersize."

"Super" because she's finally overcome decades of frustrating and unhealthy
dieting and made peace with her weight and "size" because, well, she's big.

Exactly how large, she won't specify.

"Only my doctor knows my weight," jokes Mestl, a 51-year-old secretary in
the English department at the University of Washington.

Mestl and other members of the size-acceptance movement say their 30-year
battle to promote health and happiness at all sizes is under siege by the
nation's new focus on obesity.

"I know a lot of us are feeling quite beleaguered lately," said Marty
Hale-Evans, founder of SeaFATtle, an organization that leads local
scale-smashing protests every year in honor of International No-Diet Day.

Sure, most size-acceptance activists say they'd like to be thinner, but
their bodies won't allow it. And why spend thousands of dollars on diet
schemes and weight-loss surgery, wasting years of heartache fighting their
natural tendency to tote around extra pounds?

"People look at me and they think I'm going to die of a heart attack in 45
minutes. They're wrong. I'm very healthy," said Mary Ray Worley,
spokeswoman for the National Association for Fat Acceptance, which is
holding its annual convention this week in New Jersey.

Instead of fixating on the scale, members of the movement say overweight
people should make sure they're exercising and eating healthy meals.

"What's really important is to understand that size acceptance is not
giving up," Worley said. "If you've taken your walk for the day and you've
eaten your vegetables, then you're good to go."

But that's not necessarily true, said Dr. Richard Thirlby, a weight-loss
surgeon at Virginia Mason Medical Center.

"There's a bit of denial there," Thirlby said. "The data are pretty
indisputable. Even if you factor out other health problems, obesity is a
so-called independent risk factor for premature death."

The fat liberation movement started as an outgrowth of feminism in the late
1960s, when obesity was still regarded as an individual's problem.

It's now considered a national epidemic that threatens to overtake tobacco
as the No. 1 preventable cause of death in the United States, according to
the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The movement, too, has evolved to address the larger public-health
question, shifting away from feminist politics toward a defense of size
rooted in debunking what activists call the medical myths of obesity.

"So much of the press is alarmist about the consequences of even a few
pounds of extra body weight," Worley said. "We take exception to that. I
personally have found that my health has improved greatly since I quit
trying to lose weight."

But labeling fat a disease -- a position the federal government moved
closer to last month when it dropped a policy that said obesity is not a
disease -- sets a potentially dangerous precedent, Hale-Evans said.

"It's kind of good that people will begin to move away from making it a
moral issue, but on the other hand, we're really concerned about
weight-loss surgery and how people might see it as a quick fix," Hale-Evans
said.

Miriam Berg, director of the Council on Size & Weight Discrimination in New
York and an early member of the fat liberation movement, said she doesn't
object to government efforts to encourage activity, such as building bike
paths and safe parks. What bothers her are messages and policies aimed
primarily at weight loss.

"It is such a lucrative business," Berg said. "Because diets don't work,
the weight-loss industry is guaranteed repeat business."

Scientists do believe some people's bodies work against weight loss, making
them more susceptible to obesity in a culture in which food is everywhere
and opportunities to move around are few.

"Genetics play a role," said James Hill, director of the Center for Human
Nutrition at the University of Colorado and co-founder of the National
Weight Control Registry, which tracks people who've lost weight and kept it
off. "Some people can be doing all the right things and still be heavy."

But most overweight people probably aren't exercising enough to maintain a
healthy weight, he added.

"When you look at people who successfully keep it off, they make up for a
drop in metabolism with an increase in physical activity."

Mestl has tried every diet. She's restricted herself to 500 calories a day,
sipped liquid protein, attended Weight Watchers meetings and survived on
grapefruits alone. She even lost 140 pounds once.

But the pounds came back with a vengeance. That kind of yo-yo dieting is
not only ineffective, it could be damaging, obesity researchers say. In a
study published this year, scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer
Research Center found that wildly fluctuating weight can wreak havoc on
dieters' immune systems.

"If my body stays this size or if I gain weight, I just have to accept it,"
said Mestl, who founded a swimming group for overweight women 15 years ago
that still meets three times a week.

She spends an hour in the pool each time out, relishing the only exercise
she can do without pain. Mestl has osteoarthritis in both knees, a
condition aggravated by her weight.

"Most people consider me an extremely positive, happy person, and I am. I'm
not going to stop my life until I lose weight."