So I have to say, this school is really not fat positive in the least.

And it’s really pissing me off.

It’s probably not just my school, it just seems that in Anatomy in general, fat is BAD.. OOGIE BOOGIE! I am so over my teacher insinuating that ‘we all know we hate it’ type of mentality. 

And, oh how happy this makes me, in Anatomy Lab we are going to be using skin fold calipers to figure out how much ‘non essential’ fat we have. And then we get to use some random equation to calculate what percent body fat we have! YAY! I’m so fucking happy that I might die of happiness! Or maybe die of obesity, since it kills all those zillions of people every day.

Do you want to know the random equation we are given to determine our % norms?

Females: % body fat = (0.55 x triceps skin fold in mm) + (0.31 x subscapular skin fold in mm) + 6.13

How did they make this equation? Hell if i know. It doesn’t say anywhere near that table.

And the best part? You know what the categories are for percent body fat? You’re either an “Olympic Sprinter” “Acceptable” or “Obese”… oh gee, I’m glad that normal people are “acceptable”. It just sounds like “Well, I guess you’re okay, you’re acceptable”, like as thought it isn’t good enough, just acceptable.

Shall I quote what the lab book says about Obese individuals?

Body Fat is an important indicator of health. Obese individuals are at increased risk for heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, and osteoarthritis. Therefore, it is important to have reliable methods of determining the percent body fat. Procedures for determining body composition include: hydrostatic (underwater) weighing, measurement of subcutaneous fat folds, bioelectric impedance analysis, ultrasound, computerized tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA).  

and it just gets better:

PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH TOO MUCH ADIPOSE TISSUE. It is estimated that a third of all Americans are overweight. Obesity can occur as a result of an increase in fat cell size, number, or both. Fat cells increase in number during childhood. In the adult, the number of cells becomes fixed, and they increase only in size (except in extreme obesity). Severely obese individuals have been shown to have three times as many fat cells than lean people. Weight loss results in a decrease in the size of fat cells; not in the number, so it is important to prevent the initial development of fat cells during childhood and youth. Fat accumulation in the abdominal area (an “apple” physique) poses greater health risks than fat deposits in the hips and thighs (“pear” physique).

Seriously. I. hate. this. 

Do you know how often I keep wishing I was just thin and like everyone else and not feeling personally attacked whenever I hear this shit? Pretty much daily. I wish I was just ignorant of everything of the fatosphere so I wouldn’t feel like I’m learning a bunch of bullshit. And what really annoys me is that I won’t confront my teacher. I know I’m won’t. Even if I did it wouldn’t matter, she would be the one with science backing her. I’d just sound like a vengeful fattie who doesn’t want to hear the truth. 

And am I the only one who thinks measuring you fat in lab is a waste of my goddamn time? I know I’m obese, thank you, as if anyone in the class didn’t know what they were classified as, seeing as every time you go to the doctor or for school you are weighed and measured and told if you are a “normal” (or in this case, “acceptable”) or in great shape! I would also think have people pinch your arm and back fat might be triggering for some people. If I weren’t blogging here today and reading other fat blogs it would be hella triggering for me, not to mention embarrassing.

All I hear about around here is how people think they are so fucking fat. Or hearing the guys say that all the girls here are “just whales anyway”. Or the one girl that is pretty much one of my friends engage in shame for eating, or that she needs to burn away what she just ate, or that since she exercised she is ‘allowed’ to eat. Every time she says something like that, I ask her “Are you hungry?” I tell her if she isn’t hungry, don’t eat it, but if she is, then eat. I was talking to another girl, and her view seemed to be a little more positive, but more along the lines of “everyone would want to change something about themselves”. I pretty much said that no, I don’t want to change anything about myself, and I think that kind of attitude is unhealthy. The girl in the dorm next to me, well, all i hear her screaming about if “I FEEL SO FUCKING FAT RIGHT NOW” and she’s fucking thin. I HATE this environment. hatehatehatehatehatehate it. 

I know this is probably true of every college (though I did notice at Cedar Crest that one girl had done a presentation about how fat women are shown on TV, which made me happy that there was at least a hint of FA there)

Anyway, bottom line is I just hate feeling like I can’t do anything about the science stuff. Not to mention the fact that I am probably the only one who knows about FA and how a lot of that stuff is BS. I guess just the fact that my professor believes in it makes me feel like I am wrong. I mean, come on, the professor knows what she’s talking about, how could she be wrong about this? The other half me just thinks, How could she believe this? And I just think how much I fucking hate how fatphopic the world is. UGH.

Thinking about it just makes me pissed off. And the fact that I have no idea what to do about it other than to just bear it, remembering my beliefs and the real facts about it (though then I just think that if they were real facts than why the fuck doesn’t anyone else know them?)…. ugh.. Again, I wish I were just ignorant and thin the way I should be. But I’m not, so that doesn’t really do me any fucking good.

I guess the best I can muster out of all this is that when I become a nurse I’ll know better, and won’t judge people on their weight (or be an ignorant ass about the issue), and know that I’m right. But that’s the best I can do.

This deserves another “ugh..”