Those fat people just won't stop eating

New scientist reports on an 'anti-fat' pill

This study highilights a compound that tells the body it's full. Appart from the implications of tricking your body into believeing you've had enough food to satisfy your hunger when you haven't and the potential for misuse to prevent hunger pangs when starvation dieting, it just plays into the entire idea that fat people are fat because we can't help scarfing down food every ten seconds. (Note, I don't actually have access to the full paper, aparently, so we're going on what New Scientist has to say, that's the article linked).

To start with, this isn't the case. I'm not going to play the comparison game, but many fat people simply don't eat that much more or food that is less healthy then their thin counterparts. Of course, some do, but most fat people eat a diet that, in another person, wouldn't produce obesity. Saying that fat is all about fod intake simplifies the matter beyond belief and ignores the reality of a lot of healthy, active fat people who enjoy normal diets and normal exercise.

Next, eating isn't purely a biological phenomena. We don't gorge ourselves on christmas bay because of biological triggers and starve ourselves in the spring because of hormines, we binge becasue of christmas and we starve for a 'beach body'. Eating is very much a social phenonema. We don't just eat when we're hungry. Sometimes we eat when we're not hungry, sometimes we don't eat when are bodies are desperate for food. In humans, eating is much more tied up in a social activity then as something triggered by biology. Feeding my a drug to stop me feeling hungry won't stop me eating, even when I'm not hungry I eat because I enjoy food, I enjoy the social aspect of eating, and I have habits where I'm not able to concentrate if I don't have meals at certain times. Eating isn't about hunger, it's a social thing.

Anyone else sick of this story?

Some crazy people force women to be fat!

I've read this story before. I think we all have. It works it's way to the top of the BBC 'most read' or 'most e-mailed' list every so often and we get to learn how disghusting it is that sometimes instead of forcing people to be unhealthily thin to meet a beauty ideal we force them to be unhealthily fat to meet a beauty ideal.

I mean, just take this paragraph -

She argued that in the end the girls were grateful.

"When they are small they don't understand, but when they grow up they are fat and beautiful," she said.

Now, let's reverse it

"When they are fat they don't understand, but when they grow up they are slamm and beautiful," she said.

Don't tell me you couldn't see someone saying something like that in the west.

Forcing anyone to be any weight that isn't natural for them is bad, that's what size acceptance is all about. However, our culture difeinetley has no right to talk when it comes to forcing women to change their bodies to suit men.

Hope it's a long time before I see this article circulating up again.

Fat Bitch

The other day, a group of my friends were talking about the worst name you could use on a dating website, as a woman looking to attract men. The first thing that popped out of their mouths, "Fat bitch".

Well, I'm a fat bitch. I'm proud to be a fat bitch.

I'm fat. I have the kind of body that, when I go to a doctor, they immediatley start looking shifty and plotting a way to get me on the scales. Even if I was weighed on my last visit just a couple of weeks or even days ago. I get on the scale, they put their number in their magical NHS computer and add my height, then we get the look of doom. Oh no, you're going to die. They look at me, wondering how to tell me. Sorry mame, it's obesity!

In fact, the scenario above has happened so often that it's stopped making me uncomfortable. I've got to the point where I just look at them like they're idiots. Well, no shit. You know, I hadn't noticed. But now, now you say it, it's so obvious! That's why I've been having trouble fitting into my size 10's lately!

I am fat.

But, you know what, I like being fat. I am fat possitive. I love my fat body, I love it exactly as much as I would love a thin body or a 'normal' body or, hell, a body twice as big as the one I've got. This fat body of mine lets me walk and run. My fat body can dance like nobody's watching. My fat body can cycle to work. My fat body can do science and part of this fat body of mine is my fat brain which I like to think is a pretty intelligent little organ. My fat body lets me hug my best friends. My fat body lets me hit things when I get angry. My fat body lets me cry at soppy movies. My fat body gives me orgasms. My fat body looks good and feels good and there's nothing wrong with it.

I'm a bitch too. I'm a bitch because I'm tired of taking shit. I'm only 23 and I've already taken so much shit that I'm past it. I'm sick of casual racism, casual sexism, casual ablism, casual transphobia, casual hatred of all kinds. I'm sick of being told it's funny and it's a joke. I'm not standing for it any more and, if you do, I'm going to call you on it. I'm going to ask why it is you think implying all homosexual men are effeminet is funny. I'm going to ask you what funny about rape or about having a non-standard body or about having skin that's not white.

Furthermore, I won't let you talk over me. If you're a man and you talk over me I'll tell you to shut the fuck up. When you tell me I can't do something because I'm a girl i'll tell you to shut the fuck up. When you try and tell me that rape scene in that manga wasn't a rape scene because the victim totally wanted it really I will tell you to SHUT THE FUCK UP. I will tell you that you are wrong and I will tell you why.

I will not accept that sometimes it's ok to spread hatred because you think it's funny, reguardless of if you're Jeremy Clarkson or my best friend.

So I'm a bitch.

And I'm fat.

I'm a fat bitch.

I'm damn proud of it, too. If that's the worst, least attractive thing you can think of for me to be then I guess I've got it made.

Trouble in the lab

Ok, I'm going foroward with all my strength with this new "show them your good face" thing. Right now I'm meant to be running a gel. I can run gels. I spent a year running gels. I can mix agarose, I can make a loading buffer, I can visualise my gel.

But I'm not psychic.

I don't know where things are without being told. Some things I can guess, but there are a lot of things in our fridge and I can't go through them all, I have oher things to do today too. The visualiser, it could be ANYWHERE. Seriously. I've done gels before, but I don't know this lab. Leaving me with a protocol and a note telling me I'll have to make up some loading buffer won't help me if I don't know where the bits to make the loading buffer are.

So now I'm sat here feeling useless and like a burden on everyone because I'm not psychic when it comes to the locations of lab equiptment.

Week 6, where does the time go?

It's now week 6 of this thing. I seem to have lost a week somewhere but, never mind.

Anyway, I'm back doing work in the lab now. My DNA extractions are sat in the freezer being extracted and my shelf on my bench is filling up nicely with neatly labeled bottles of stuff.

See, the big thing that's different between this lab and my old lab is that, in this lab, science doesn't come in a box. The lab I did my placement, we were very 'high tech'. You didn't mix up a extraction buffer, the extraction buffer came in a bottle in a box, you just mixed. It's kind of like ready made cake mix only ready made science. It's kind of nice doing it the 'old fashioned' way of making everything up myself. It's nice to actually do some science.

However, I'm not been having that good a time in the lab and I blame this on negative attitude. I'm not showing them my good face right now, and I've decided to change that. If I role out of bed every day convinced it's going to be a bad day becasue of silly little unrelated issues then it will be a bad day. If I get up every day with a smile and try my best then everything will be better. Half of the battle in ejoying a situation is to convince yourself to enjoy it. I've been so concerned with getting everything right and getting it right the first time that I haven't tried anything...you have to try it if you want to suceed at it!

Anyway, that's my new attitude. We'll see how it goes.

The other thing is, while I'm ejoying this student social life and all, you don't know how much I need to day to go into town and pick up essentials. I don't have any hair ties and it's getting to be a problem. It seems like every weekend I have a social event and every weekday I'm working and there's no time to take care of the basics.

Hopefully I'm going into town on Saturday to buy me some stuff...if I have time around my other commitments...

Supervisor meetings

How long does it take before routine supervisor meetings stop being scary? When I did my placement and my undergrad the PL's avoided me, I'm not used to having all this contact time XD I'm sure I'll get used to it soon, it's definetley a good move. I know for a fact that it's so easy to get lost in a lab, coming into this I knew one of the main things I wanted was a supervisor with time for me, and I've got it. I'm sure soon I'll get used to all of this people paying attention to what I'm doing buisness.

I really need to start commenting on blogs rather then just reading them.

Edit - Also, I'm finally going to do some lab work this week! Only took 5 weeks of being here. My little plants are all grown up and ready to go!