workplace, school, family, social settings, and health care) 3, with various negative social, psychological, and economic consequences. Anti‐fat stigma, or negative attitudes about people who are in the overweight or obese weight range 2, is present across many areas of life (e.g. You, me, and everything on land and sea are organic.Up to 40% of American adults have experienced anti‐fat stigma personally 1. Unless you personally know the farmer or the company selling the products, don't trust what you read. So be cautious the next time you buy anything labeled as 'organic'. If you go to jungles or forests untouched by man, you will see fruit and vegetables that look like they sprouted from trees from Heaven. Chemical-free foods can look perfect if grown in your backyard. I have a friend who thinks that organic foods have to look beat up and deformed because the use of chemicals is what makes them look perfect and flawless. So, the next time you stroll through your local supermarket and see brown pears that are labeled as being organic, know that they could have been third-rate fare sourced from the last day of a weekend market, and have been re-labeled to be sold to a gullible crowd for a premium price. The word 'organic' comes from the word 'organism', meaning something that is, or once was, living and breathing air, water and sunlight. After all, all organisms on earth are scientifically labeled as being organic, unless they are made of plastic or metal. The truth is, the word 'organic' can mean many things, and taking a farmer to court would be difficult if you found out his fruits were indeed sprayed with pesticides. Either the apple tree itself is free from chemicals, or just the soil. If an apple is labeled as being organic, it could mean two things. You pay premium prices for products you think are grown without chemicals, but most products are. Most products labeled as being organic are not really organic. If I was a lawyer representing a company that had labeled its oranges as being organic, and a man was suing my client because he found out that the oranges were being sprayed with toxins, my defense opening statement would be very simple: "If it's not plastic or metallic, it's organic." I am using this example to touch upon the myth of organic foods. This means that you can deceptively use words with double meanings to sell a product, even though they could mislead customers into thinking your words mean something different. In a marketing class in college, we were assigned this case study to show us that 'puffery' is legal. The container is indeed 'light in weight'. In court, the lawyer representing the butter company simply held up the container of butter and said to the judge, "My client did not lie. She claimed to have gained so much weight from eating the butter, even though it was labeled as being 'LITE'. Let my girls be Hermiones, rather than Pansy Parkinsons.”Ī few decades ago, a woman tried to sue a butter company that had printed the word 'LITE' on its product's packaging. And frankly, I’d rather they didn’t give a gust of stinking chihuahua flatulence whether the woman standing next to them has fleshier knees than they do. I’ve got two daughters who will have to make their way in this skinny-obsessed world, and it worries me, because I don’t want them to be empty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones I’d rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny – a thousand things, before ‘thin’. Aren’t either of those things more important, more interesting, than my size?’ But no – my waist looked smaller! Forget the kid and the book: finally, something to celebrate! What I felt like saying was, ‘I’ve produced my third child and my sixth novel since I last saw you. ‘Well,’ I said, slightly nonplussed, ‘the last time you saw me I’d just had a baby.’ The first thing she said to me? ‘You’ve lost a lot of weight since the last time I saw you!’ After the award ceremony I bumped into a woman I hadn’t seen for nearly three years. I went to the British Book Awards that evening. I mean, is ‘fat’ really the worst thing a human being can be? Is ‘fat’ worse than ‘vindictive’, ‘jealous’, ‘shallow’, ‘vain’, ‘boring’ or ‘cruel’? Not to me but then, you might retort, what do I know about the pressure to be skinny? I’m not in the business of being judged on my looks, what with being a writer and earning my living by using my brain… “Fat’ is usually the first insult a girl throws at another girl when she wants to hurt her.
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