Lily
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Moriah Jovana case for wearing hotpants
Posted by Lily on June 25, 2008
One of my LDS friends once lamented to me that she had such a cute body when she was a teen, but she was obsessed with being “modest” and never wore anything that highlighted her curves or showed off her cellulite-free thighs. She said that after having several kids and gaining quite a bit of weight in the process, she felt sad that she no longer had a body that would look good in sexy clothes.
I thought of my friend today when I watched this video. Joy is indeed beautiful and her physical confidence is charming. I can’t believe that big women actually receive the slurs and insults that she relates in this clip.
jessawhy said
What a great video!
I like how she said that fat-prejudice is the only form of prejudice where the victims feel like they deserve to be mistreated.
How sad.
Disagree said
Eight percent of the U.S. population has been diagnosed as diabetic. Many more are undiagnosed. The obesity rate is out of sight. Diabetes is one of the major causes of sky high health care inflation.
A few days ago I came across a 30 minute promotion for oldies music. I watched because it brought back so many good memories. When the Mamas and Papas were on I couldn’t help remarking to my husband that back then Mama Cass was an oddity, but today millions of men and women have huge pregnant looking bellies hanging out over their waistbands and exposed flab between pants and shirt and ZERO embarrassment about it. We’re all paying the price for their over-indulgence. Over-indulging them by saying it’s ok to be fat is not doing any of them a favor. What’s this fat-prejudice business? No one is born fat!
For the most part, obese people are so because of overeating and not moving around enough. There are exceptions, I know. My own older sister was recently diagnosed with diabetes; she was overweight for years. I’m determined this will not happen to me. I’ve never been obese, but I’m not skinny either. Like many I constantly fight the battle of the bulge; I bike and walk many places when driving would be much faster and convenient. I work out and watch what i eat most of the time.
And yes, Joy has a beautiful face and is a beautiful woman. But when it comes to obesity, the verdict is in.
buffy said
While I don’t condone being mean or judgemental in general, and name-calling is just plain wrong, I’m afraid I have to agree with “disagree’s” post. I work at a hospital and see the damage that obesity does to individuals (and thier loved ones, and those of us who foot the bill…)
it does not serve those who suffer with obesity to “celebrate” the body human in all of its forms…also since this is a sex blog afterall, Obesity is very damaging to sexuality.
I know there are some fetishists who get all into “frottage” but I can tell you, if my patients aren’t struggling with all of the medical-sexual problems of obesity (ED, infertility, etc.) they struggle with the sheer mechanics. There is acutually something called a retracted penis pouch in our supply cabinet because the bigger a guy gets, the smaller and harder to find his “guy” gets.
buffy said
how do those stupid winking smiley emicon freaks get into the post?!
AYW said
I LOVE Joy Nash.
Ok, just to get it out of the way–I am really into big people, male and female. I love it when whoever I am with is significantly larger than I am. It’s not hard because I’m a really small person, but I thought I’d put my prejudices forth and be up front.
I don’t think I really buy the whole “fat people just eat a lot” argument. My best friend weighs twice as much as I do. We eat together several times each week. We almost always eat either the same amount or I eat more. We’re the same height. My parents are both very thin, though, and her heritage tends to be larger. I don’t think it’s fair that people judge her harshly and expect her to somehow diet down to my size–she just doesn’t have the genetic potential. Plus, she is beautiful as she is.
Even if some people make poor eating choices, why does that give us any right to be judgmental? All of us make poor choices. So it shows up on some peoples’ bodies and not on others. Feel lucky if it doesn’t show up on yours, but don’t act like an ass if you see someone who is fat. It’s nobody’s business. I think that was the point of the video. Everybody–even fat people–has a right to feel good about themselves. And if you feel good about your body, you’ll take better care of it. Funny how that workds.
Elaine Frei said
So. Being fat is unhealthy, so it’s okay to make fat people feel horrible about themselves?
Bull.
And it’s okay to discriminate against people who are fat because they weren’t born that way?
Cool. Then I guess it’s okay to discriminate against people because of their religion, too, since religion is not an inborn trait. (No, really. I promise you, there is no Catholic gene or Muslim gene or Mormon gene or Buddhist gene.)
Honestly, I’m sick of thin people acting like they are superior to me because I’m fat and they’re not and so they are “healthier”.
Got news for you. Thin people get sick, too. They get heart disease and cancer and, yeah, sometimes diabetes, too.
Joe Too said
There is no established causative relationship from obesity to diabetes. There is some credible evidence that it’s actually the other way around.
A distinction needs to also be made between obesity and being overweight. Unfortunately, the definition of obesity is being defined down. This is important since repeated scientific studies have found that being overweight not only doesn’t cause many ailments claimed, but results in people living longer.
For the most part, obese people are so because of overeating and not moving around enough.
This is simply untrue and has been proved repeatedly by numerous scientific studies. One thing to be very careful of is that many studies showing the misconceptions of weight are misrepresented by the authors themselves! Why, because it’s simply politically incorrect to say anything which exposes the hoax the so-called obesity epidemic.
Here are some good references:
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2007/10/obesity-paradox-13-take-heart.html
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/06/run-fat-bomb-getting-ready-to-detonate.html
Joe Too said
Elaine actually touches on an important point. Being underweight results in more health problems and higher mortality than being overweight. (Underfeed rats and they live longer. Underfeed humans and they die younger. Humans aren’t rats.)
MoJo said
I would like to also point out that if the argument against fat people is about their lifestyle choices which result in disease and other health issues (that may or may not follow into your pocketbook),
you must also follow that out to its logical conclusion and include those homosexuals who, through their lifestyle choices, acquire diseases and other health issues (that may or may not follow into your pocketbook).
Where you celebrate a right to one lifestyle choice and denigrate another is, at the very least, hypocritical.
My body does best on a low-carb diet. I feel great and I keep my weight under control. However, I notice that the Diet Police want to tax beef the same way they use a “sin tax.” Where does the ridicule end and the regulation by people who don’t know (and don’t care to learn) about my body’s dietary needs begin?
I refer you to this blog: Junkfood Science. Pick a post, any post, but this was a recent post that made me realize the Twinkie Police in the US are gaining ground.
I’d just request that before you start picking apart one person’s lifestyle choices that you think about the other lifestyle choices you approve of but that result in the same issues you have problems with in the one you don’t like.
MoJo said
Dadgummit. My post got caught in moderation for 2 links. Lily!!! Pweeze can we have a 3- or 4-link limit??? (And pweeze can I have my comment out of hock?)
Elaine Frei said
Oh, and Lily…you say that you can’t believe that fat women are slurred and insulted as indicated in the clip.
Well, my high-speed internet isn’t working today, so I can’t hear what was said there, but I can relate my own experience.
I’ve had insults of all stripes hurled at me by people driving by in cars when I’ve been walking. I’ve had people walk by me snorting like a pig and mooing like a cow. I’ve had people stare and point and giggle at me in situations where it was obvious that I was the target of the snickering. I’ve had complete strangers walk up to me and inform me that I’m fat, that I’m ugly, that I’m obviously stupid. I’ve even had someone…again a total stranger…walk up to me and inform me that I should just go kill myself because I’m so fat and ugly that no one should ever have to look at me.
And then there’s the job discrimination. One time, when I went into a store to get an employment application, the person I asked for the app said, “Oh, we don’t have any applications right now and we aren’t accepting them now anyway.” She said that even though I was standing right behind the previous person she talked to, who requested an application and was given one off of a very full pad of application forms and was informed of when the manager would be in so that she could return the app.
I guess because I’m fat, she also assumed that I’m blind and deaf.
The thing that puzzles me about all this is that, while I’m fat, I’m certainly not on the largest end of the spectrum by any means.
Anonymous said
Guys at my high school wore hot pants all the time, it was no big deal.
Eugene said
So. Being fat is unhealthy, so it’s okay to make fat people feel horrible about themselves?
Of course! We harangue smokers for smoking. We harangue shock jocks for being shocking. We harangue drivers of SUVs. We harangue university presidents and Nobel Prize winners (and get them fired from their jobs) for articulating “improper” ideas and thinking “wrong” thoughts. We harangue restaurants for not frying French fries in the “right” kind of oil, and harangue breakfast cereal manufacturers for not advertising the “right” kinds of cereal on Saturday morning. In a world where anybody may be offended by anybody for anything, somebody will get around to being offended by you, and will feel justified in haranguing you for your “own good.” Count on it.
Joe said
“Being underweight results in more health problems and higher mortality than being overweight.”
Joe Too – you’ll have to point me to some data on this. While I realize that health problems can plague anyone, obesity is more strongly linked to the diseases you mentioned. Btw, underweight does not equal underfed. Gotta love that metabolism…
Elaine Frei said
Equally, although some folks will not admit it to save their lives, overweight does not necessarily equal overfed.
Steve EM said
The WofW and a sedentary lifestyle makes some people fat (section 89, not HJG’s four don’ts). I used to be overweight and Atkins gave me a twenty-something body again while I still have the same mostly sedentary job. IMHO, Atkins should have received a Nobel Prize in medicine.
MoJo said
Thank you.
I will have you know, though, that members who got their knickers in a twist about my carnivorousness would tell me specifically I was breaking the WoW and I should not have a temple recommend.
However, no bishop or stake president whom I have asked would do deny someone a temple recommend on that basis of the WoW. They were even surprised I felt a need to get that clarified.
Eugene said
The Japanese enjoy the longest lifespans in the world, and compared to Americans are positively anorexic. Granted, genes have a lot to do with it. But seriously, I saw the MoTab in concert in Yokohama when I was on my mission, and it was like the concert hall had been invaded by a herd of water buffalo.
In fact, the average BMI for Japanese women under 30 has decreased slightly over the past quarter century (a slight gain in weight offset by a slight gain in height). Interestingly, the authors of this study point to smoking as an underlying cause, rather than eating disorders.
Of course, Japanese are just as obsessed with the subject as Americans. The favorite health topic on morning news shows is “metabolic syndrome.” You could easily be persuaded by the Japanese mass media that the entire country is going to die of it tomorrow, leading to laws like “mandatory obesity checks.”
Get the government heavily involved in the health insurance economy, toss in a bunch of busybody bureaucrats, and you’ll see it here too.
xJane said
AMEN! Live with no regrets. I wore hot pants, tank tops, even tube tops! I still do, sometimes (although I really have gained weight :-p). Feel good about yourself. Fuck the rest. Oh, & btw, to Joy: you are gorgeous!
MoJo said
Granted, genes have a lot to do with it.
It has everything to do with it, and I don’t mean how much we eat/don’t eat.
What it boils down to is how our bodies process food. When I was first on Atkins and losing and feeling fabulous, I was a convert, a complete zealot. I spread the Gospel of Atkins.
But as I started to look around and saw thin people eating things that made me sick and fat, when I realized that people were sensitive to some foods but not others–and usually not the things I’m sensitive to (even traditionally low-carb things), that one way doesn’t work for everyone.
The fat-free thing? Bogus. For me and apparently for Steve. This is what the medical community has failed to recognize; everyone has their hot points in what’s good for their bodies. Atkins was, by far, not the first to understand the link between low-carb and metabolism.
The problem comes when people who have either no problem with weight (because of genetics) and/or people who have unwittingly stumbled upon the way to eat that fits their bodies and/or people who have worked to find the solutions to their own nutrition needs feel the compulsion to apply their solutions to somebody else’s problems and think it’s the end-all be-all of diet.
So, fine. Say the WoW works for some people, or the Asian way of eating works for them by and large, but you cannot also say that it will work for everyone else, too.
Steve EM said
MoJo,
I beleive that too. We’re not mass produced goods and what works for one person may not work for someone else. I will say people who are hungry all the time have a medical disorder which I put in an entirely different category than most of us who just need to find the right diet that works for us individually.
Regarding the WofW, the TR question is refering to HJG’s four don’ts period, not section 89, hence the confusion between the LDS masses and our “trained” clergy. So we have two WofWs, a canonized one we ignore and HJG’s four don’ts we enforce. Hence part of my opposition to the WofW as a requirement, all this emphasis on something we haven’t even bothered to canonize. Moreover, Section 89 allows beer, and I think that’s why it’s fallen into obscurity. We’ll enough of my being an LDS Martin Luther.
MoJo said
Steve, you know better than that. Beer is liquid bread.
Steve EM said
Yes, and accordingly, beer is one of the worst things for the waistline, at least for me, especially my favorite brand, Guinness. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a Guinness.
buffy said
Guinness is only a couple of points on weight watchers…it’s like I tell my patients, indulge like a european. Eat a gooey slice of your favorite pizza, just don’t eat the whole damn pie… savor something rich and enjoyable at a meal, then reign it in for the rest of the day.
I agree with the argument of individuality and contribution of genetics in terms of weight loss it is incredibly complex contributing to the high failure rates, but I think the problem(s) of weight gain can be much more generalizable.
I appreciate the clarification of the WOW (didn’t previously understand that) , I am going to use it to diffuse my little brother who goes into a raging tantrum every time he has to confess his once in a while coffee/beer indulgence to a morbidly obese bishop who has already had a quadruple bypass….
MoJo said
I’m sorry, Buffy, but I think you’ve completely missed the point Steve and I have been making.
Your advice doesn’t work for me and thousands of other people including Steve. If it did, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. That you, a member of the medical community, do not give a second thought that there might be some other key or some other tool or some other way, is, IMO, problematic and precisely part of the problem.
It took me years to figure out that advice was exactly the opposite of what I should have been doing, that it was making me fat and sick, keeping me ravenously hungry all the time, and, in the end, doing me great harm emotionally and physically.
Just a little food for thought.
Eugene said
Here’s the original article by Gary Taubes that inspired his book, Good Calories, Bad Calories.
buffy said
I guess the gooey slice/European comment didn’t make my point very well, my bad. I did agree with your assertion about the individuality of diet plans and I would never suggest a specific type of diet for any particular person (Although I may change my mind after reading Eugene’s link). I will however assert that extremes in dieting, especially those that encourage deprivation and unusual patterns of eating are in general not very effective (hence why I suggest indulging once in awhile, just not overdoing it). It is wonderful if you had success with Atkins, but unfortunately, many diets such as A. and South beach have initially fabulous results, however, the long term success just ain’t great. Most people can’t maintain a radical alteration to their lifelong habits.
I do believe we understand most of the CAUSES of obesity enough to make some pretty great strides towards effective prevention programs which is why I think the national childhood obesity campaign is some of the most important work undertaken since anti-smoking agendas became vogue…
Back to Joy, I think anyone who hurls that kind of verbal abuse at another human being deserves a good kick to the crotch (or worse), but ultimately my opinion is that waging a campain of obesity acceptance and appreciation of larger body types (which is what I think this post was originally driving at) does tremendous disservice to both individual and society. Mojo you yourself have stated that what you were doing was making you “fat and sick” and “doing great harm emotionally and physically”. Similarly, I know of no one who was inspired to make radically important lifestyle changes because they felt confident and happy about the status quo. Making someone complacent with their body image will not invoke the kind of change that may save thier life. Ask anyone who 30 years ago got a boner for the sultry, sexy Marlboro man what they think now..
MoJo said
I should have been more specific.
WEIGHT WATCHERS was making me fat and sick and doing great harm emotionally and physically.
You know how the Miracle of Forgiveness makes some people feel like they’re on the express train to hell? That’s the kind of guilt I got from not succeeding at Weight Watchers and being accused of cheating on my diet while still being hungry and miserable.
“There’s nothing that tastes so good as being thin feels” is one of the worst lies ever perpetrated on mankind.
Eugene said
Seth Roberts has another interesting approach to the subject. His theory is that people can control their metabolic “set point” by decoupling flavor and calories. (I do find it a good explanation of the role of plain, white rice in the traditional Japanese diet.) In any case, Roberts (professor emeritus of psychology at UC Berkeley) is one of the few popular science writers who can talk intelligently about experimentation and the scientific method.
buffy said
I liked the NYT article enough that I’m amazoning myself a copy of the book…looking forward to learning a new take on a frustrating subject
this is frankly one of those issues that I hate discussing, (probably in my top 5). Most of us get the big picture and a reiteration of what we pretty much all struggle with at one point or another in our lives just ends up sounding sort of mean (as I reveiw my posts).
There is just no way to debate this without coming off as preachy or judgemental even if armed with scientific facts because it is such a personal and painful issue to anyone who has tried to lose from 5 to 500 lbs.
Personally I am looking forward to moving on to the next post subject. I wouldn’t mind discussing the mormon slant on brazilian waxing. Even a nice robust deconstruction of feminine hygiene products would be more enticing about now…
Joe Too said
Buffer, you do know that the national childhood obesity campaign has been a dismal failure. There is no evidence to a childhood obesity epidemic anyway (the idea was manufactured out of twisting statistics.) Unfortunately, the effects of this misguided campaign are very real and are causing health problems–for example, too many people, especially girls, are avoiding milk and suffering from vitamin D deficiencies. Fat and cholesterol are critical components in brain development, yet both are denigrated as evil.
Elaine Frei said
The use of hyperbole and scare tactics in relation to the “childhood obesity epidemic” have been unbelievable.
Of course, no one with any sense advocates that children eat unlimited amounts of sweets. However, I have seen (among other travesties) television advertisements that make it sound like eating one cookie will doom a child to certain obesity and diabetes. Which is absurd on the face of it.
On a wider scale, it amazes me how diet product commercials have changed. Used to be, fitting into a size 12 or 14 would be a goal for women. Now, we are subjected to ads in which women moan that they were so fat at a size 12 and then they celebrate the fact that now that they are a size 2 or 4, they can finally feel good about themselves. That’s just a little extreme, I think.