The spiritual benefits of breastfeeding.

We are more than one, but not quite two. I haven’t discovered the calculus to describe where one self ends and another begins. I can only notice when the boundaries of personhood blur: how I can’t stop kissing the soft folds of her neck, how I wake at night moments before she does, how my body turns blood into milk into baby. - Dr. Rixa Freeze from What does it mean to be a woman?

Me and Baby Benjamin May 2000

My Mom and Meg May 1982

First there was the spiritual preparation for breastfeeding.


And so great were the blessings of the Lord upon us, that while we did live upon raw meat in the wilderness, our women did give plenty of suck for their children, and were strong, yea, even like unto the men; and they began to bear their journeyings without murmurings. 1 Nephi 12:2

When 21 & 22 and pregnant with Benjamin I didn't prepare myself well enough for childbirth - obviously since I agreed to induction early and then forceps. But I think it would have been a c-section if there wasn't two already going on in the hospital when I started pushing.

But I did prepare for breastfeeding. I was terrified I wouldn't be able to do it or stick with it. You see I had almost never seen a baby nurse. The internet was not as plush with info then. My mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and close Aunt did not breastfeed.

So I read and read. Mostly this: The Nursing Mother's Companion.  And I prayed and prayed that I would be able to feed my new baby the way I wanted. They way I believed nature wanted. I let my silly notions of natural childbirth go but I was set on breastfeeding.

Then there was the physical  preparation for breastfeeding:

I went to breastfeeding class.  I got one of those "my breast friend"pillows... boppy's will do but don't work too well for fat girls. I got several different nursing bras. One as a gift and one big bag of them from a friend who gave up on breastfeeding. I only say 'gave up' because that is the words she used.
That bag of bras to me was a motivational poster: She didn't make it - but I WILL!!
One of them was like a size G made by Omar the tent maker probably. She said you'll think you'll never need it but during engorgement you'll be glad you have it. I remember day four after coming home crying to Kyle "Go get that HUGE bra. I need it."

I got a used pump from the same friend. Sanitized it and some bottles. Tried the pump one night and laughed my butt off. But when the day came where my boobs were roughly the size of Rhode Island. I was glad that I already knew the ins and outs of the pump.


Then came the baby and the trials:

Even with prayer and preparation I genuinely hoped it would just come natural for us. I mean what baby doesn't want to eat and live?  I knew that for best bonding and breastfeeding success we were to nurse as soon after birth as possible. I didn't count on them taking him away to the warmer forever (during his most wakeful moments) and me needing to get stitched up.

But Benjamin was "nursed" in the delivery room before we moved. But really he just sat there, He didn't latch well and never got a sucking pattern.

In the course of our time in the hospital he only latched on a handful of times.
When we went to the "how to bathe your baby" class the new babies there were bottle fed. And one mom made that claim with pride. I felt torn. I was worried that he wasn't getting anything and she knew exactly how many ounces her baby had since birth. But I pushed my thoughts of fear aside because I thought I'd ask all my questions when the lactation consultant came around. The breastfeeding class I went to at the hospital said that all new nursing moms would get a visit from the lactation consultant.  It wasn't till the morning of our discharge that I said to my nurse when will I see the lactation consultant? and she said "you won't - you didn't request a visit."

So we went home.

He nursed once really well when we got home that afternoon.

then..Thanks to the circumcision we shouldn't have done I spent most of the night trying to get him to latch on and Kyle spent the rest doctoring his very sore private parts.

By 1pm the next day he hadn't nursed.  So I called the pediatrician. They said bring him in right away.

I slipped on the first thing I could find - I had been naked from the waist up pretty much since getting home. It was a church dress. Big mistake.

I got there and the first thing they did was give him a 4 oz bottle of sugar water. He drank it up and they looked at me like I was CRAZY. I said "I didn't say he wouldn't take a BOTTLE! I said he wouldn't NURSE."

So they calmed me down brought in the regular pediatrician (a man) in addition to the nurse practitioner and asked me to nurse him. Idiot me in my dress!! I had to lift the whole thing up with a bunch of people watching me and I tried to feed my sleeping baby who had just been put to sleep by a tummy full of sugar water. Needless to say he wouldn't really nurse yet again. And I leaked breastmilk every. where. I think including on the doctor.

They gave me the best advice they could: "just keep trying"

I still remember walking out of that place completely soaked in my own breastmilk. feeling very defeated.

So what I did for the next four weeks was this: I tried to nurse him, it wouldn't work. Then he'd get a bottle of my breastmilk and I'd pump. My rule was if he was getting bottle fed, I was pumping an equal amount of time. I knew that supply depended on demand.  I see this mistake made on Baby story all the time. Mom's giving formula because their milk "hasn't come in" ummmm if you give the baby formula and don't pump or nurse - you're milk supply will be damaged.

pray


attempt to nurse


pray


nursing fail


kyle bottle feed, me cry while pumping.

At some point in this routine I realized my problem was 70% my flat nipples/nipple confusion and 30% my sleeping baby.

I think being induced five days early plus my babies inclination to be born 4-7 days past my due date had a lot to do with him being so tired. He wasn't ready to be earthside.

This exhausting routine and emotional roller coaster had gone on for too long and I pounded my fist into the mattress:

"I AM A COLLEGE EDUCATED WOMAN WHO CAN'T FEED HER OWN BABY"

I collapsed, and pulled Benjamin close to me. And tried just for the sake of trying, I said a little prayer and tried.

And he latched. A real latch and he suckled and suckled and swallowed and swallowed. I silently motioned to Kyle:  "look, look he's nursing!"

I remember that moment like it just happened.

It was one of the most spiritual moments of my life. It was like sitting in the Celestial room at the temple - laying there feeding my son the way I had hoped and planned on being able to do and feeling that I had overcome a major trial despite being on the edge of giving up.

A lot of times you need to get to that edge to get the the spiritual benefit of overcoming the trial. To this day I count the time spent breastfeeding my babies as some of the most sweet moments of my life.


** it wasn't all a bed of roses from there - I did get our latch down well enough that I could even walk and nurse but we still dealt with thrush and me working full-time and we weaned at 9 months, If I knew then what I know now we've would have gone longer. But my adventures in extended breastfeeding is a post for another day...

wish I had resources like this then:

from here

More happenings...

Daddy Daughter Dance... All these events like this and the assemblies at school that I was at last year very much pregnant make me a little reminiscent. PJ's first year of life really did fly by.

 Kyle and Ella rave each year about the awesome DJ at the dances - she really gets everyone out there!

 Maiya wanted a picture of me on her desk at school so early one morning we took this. I'm rocking the robe and no makeup and Maiya is naturally, remarkably beautiful.

 Yesterday Cora started music school twice a week with Sis. Shelton. There is another Cora in the class. Afterwards I said isn't that neat that there is another Cora to which she replied. "NO.. she cannot have my name."

 This is one of PJ's favorite things to do. See that paper box in the lower right corner? He stands up on that swipes every single thing off the table then climbs up on it. If he's caught it cracks him up. If he's not caught or no one is around he immediately panics and starts fussing until you come rescue him. I've considered moving the box but he loves it too much.

Planted round 2 in the square foot garden and there is activity in every square: Beans, mini pumpkins, radishes, beets, cilantro, basil, lettuce, carrots, spinach, flowers...

and I found that nifty sprinkler system at home depot just for square foot gardens either for 2 4x4's or one 4x8 (what I have.)

I should have staggered my planting to also stagger my harvest but I just love planting it all and watching every square grow and I don't know how my timing will play out in this weather.

what we've been up to lately

besides school starting and the stretching of schedules that entails and ALL three girls are strarting soccer up again...

Meggie and Justin (or Gustin as Cora says it) are getting married... March 10th, 2012 

We are talking dresses all the time over here :)

For Labor day we had a good ol fashioned Cajun Shrimp boil. It was delish and like going back to my childhood. And for the record I think all meals should be served on newspaper dumped on the table and mess shoved into a trashcan when done.

We finally got to fly the kite that Cora got for her birthday. I did pretty good with it and Kyle then said I got the best wind of the whole day - hmmmm...

I almost stepped on this spider with a HUGE egg sac. double click on it to look closer - its awesome sick!

You may already realize this but...

it never really occurred to me until I read about it this week.

Every article of clothing for celebrities and makeover shows are tailored perfectly to FIT the person WEARING them.

I am impressed generally that the show "What Not to Wear" has fat girls on the show and for the most part does not limit them to Lane Bryant (although its still a strong player).
I am pleased with how well the clothes fit them and how "spankin" hot they look in their new outfits.

I don't always feel as successful when trying to "makeover" myself then I read this from whatever, etc. (warning: some bad words) - edited out below:

A friend of a friend won a free consultation with Clinton Kelly of What Not To Wear, and she was very excited, because she has a plus-size body, and wanted some tips on how to make the most of her wardrobe in a fashion culture which deliberately puts her body at a disadvantage.

Her first question for him was this: how do celebrities make a plain white t-shirt and a pair of weekend jeans look chic?  She always assumed it was because so many celebrities have, by nature or by design, very slender frames, and because they can afford very expensive clothing.  But when she watched What Not To Wear, she noticed that women of all sizes ended up in cute clothes that really fit their bodies and looked great.  She had tried to apply some guidelines from the show into her own wardrobe, but with only mixed success.  So - what gives?

His answer was that everything you will ever see on a celebrity’s body, including their outfits when they’re out and about and they just get caught by a paparazzo, has been tailored, and the same goes for everything on What Not To Wear.  Jeans, blazers, dresses - everything right down to plain t-shirts and camisoles.  He pointed out that historically, up until the last few generations, the vast majority of people either made their own clothing or had their clothing made by tailors and seamstresses.  You had your clothing made to accommodate the measurements of your individual body, and then you moved the**** on.  Nothing on the show or in People magazine is off the rack and unaltered.  He said that what they do is ignore the actual size numbers on the tags, find something that fits an individual’s widest place, and then have it completely altered to fit.  That’s how celebrities have jeans that magically fit them all over, and the rest of us chumps can’t ever find a pair that doesn’t gape here or ride up or slouch down or have about four yards of extra fabric here and there.

I sat there after I was told this story, and I really thought about how hard I have worked not to care about the number or the letter on the tag of my clothes, how hard I have tried to just love my body the way it is, and where I’ve succeeded and failed.  I thought about all the times I’ve stood in a fitting room and stared up at the lights and bit my lip so hard it bled, just to keep myself from crying about how nothing fits the way it’s supposed to.  No one told me that it wasn’t supposed to.  I guess I just didn’t know.  I was too busy thinking that I was the one that didn’t fit.

I thought about that, and about all the other girls and women out there whose proportions are “wrong,” who can’t find a good pair of work trousers, who can’t fill a sweater, who feel excluded and freakish and sad and frustrated because they have to go up a size, when really the size doesn’t mean anything and it never, ever did, and this is just another bull* thing thrown in your path to make you feel sh**y about yourself.

I thought about all of that, and then I thought that in elementary school, there should be a class for girls where they sit you down and tell you this stuff before you waste years of your life feeling like someone put you together wrong.    (end of excerpt)

So next time you go clothes shopping, Don't berate yourself when things don't look right.


Its not "I look like crap, my butt looks big, etc..."


It is instead "these clothes don't fit, or don't look right on me"


Buy things that make you feel good. Spend a little extra money on well fitting clothes. 


Because clothes that fit well = confidence


and confidence = sexy.


You were not put together wrong. You are BEAUTIFUL!!!

excellent post on this topic at CJane

Please oh Please Google yourself today Terry Weir.

if only I had a time machine. Oh boy I'd let him have it.


the following story is one from a long line of people who have thought it ok to discuss my size...

So I took a photography class in the VERY LAST MONTH of my pregnancy with Cora. It was a good class until the last night. The teacher was very knowledgeable about photography - what you really need, what is fluff. What matters, what doesn't. He brought lots of stuff and let us try it all. He had spent years and years in the fashion industry on both coasts. He made hotel lobbies look like the beach in a pinch - BEFORE photoshop. He glued the soles of children's shoes to the set to make sure they stayed on their mark.  He confessed to living on cheese pizza for almost a year before he was making enough money to live. Then he bragged about how he went on to make more than 10 people could live on. He had one motto for being a pro photographer. "DO NOT photograph children or animals. They will make you look bad."

Funny since I was there to learn about photography of children.

Then on the last night of class: He stood in front of everyone and said... "One last piece of advice... LOSE THE WEIGHT.  No matter what side of the lens you are on being so fat will not be tolerated in the fashion industry."

As if it wasn't bad enough that I was the only big person in the ENTIRE class. He looked straight at me during his fat lecture.
I was pregnant and emotional so I didn't go off on him like I should have. Like I would now if only I could.

I just walked out (in silent tears.)

So I'll do it here:


SCREW YOU TERRY WIER!!!

1. NEVER, NEVER discuss weight with a pregnant woman. Even if she is roughly the size of Kate Moss. Its none of your business.

2. NEVER, NEVER discuss someone's weight in front of others. Especially 20 others.

3. NEVER, NEVER discuss someone's weight. In case this point is lost on you: IT'S NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS.

4.  I NEVER said I had one bit of interest in the "fashion" industry.  Screw you once again for not paying attention the night we said what our photography interests were.

5. If... if I cared for your opinion on my body.... What good do you think saying "lose the weight" will do. Will your stern warning all of sudden make dieting efforts successful? Its not your moral imperative (or anyone's for that matter (hear that Michelle Obama and Jamie Oliver) to save the world from fat.)

Why do some people think they are being helpful by criticizing someone else's body?

Shame doesn't make one healthy.

People who LOVE their bodies take CARE of their bodies.

Even if all fat people are the way they are due to their bad choices, even if every single fat person is unhealthy, that does not justify sub-standard treatment. How can the health of strangers possibly inspire such vitriol? If you remain convinced that others’ bodies are your business and people must justify their existence to you, perhaps you should consider the possibility that you are an arsehole.

Frances Lockie from here

For a better response if this has happened to you, I am going to re-post from Dance with Fat because she hit the proverbial nail on the head:

The Vague Future Health Threat: 
by Ragen Chastain

This happens to me all the time:  I’m in a conversation with someone who thought it was appropriate to make random guesses about my health based only on my size.  I’ve quelled my rage, given them the benefit of the doubt, and asked permission to suggest another point of view – to which they’ve agreed. I’ve explained that there are other beliefs out there, I’ve explained about the science.  I’ve explained  Health at Every Size.  I’ve explained that there are plenty of people with the same food and lifestyle choices who have vastly different body sizes – both healthy and unhealthy.  Now I’m using myself as an example – I’m 5’4, 284 pounds and in perfect health.  (Perfect numbers, great stamina, can press 1,000 pounds with my legs, can do the splits).

Then it happens.  The VFHT:  The Vague Future Health Threat.

It sounds like this “Well, you may be healthy now, but it will catch up to you someday”.  They look triumphant because the VFHT is indefensible.

Now instead of completely quelling my rage and giving them the benefit of the doubt, I’m just fighting the urge to set this person on fire. It’s not just the person I’m talking to -  it’s also that this is the the 10 zillionth time I’ve heard this over the past 13years.  I’m still healthy and I’m starting to wonder if I’ll be 102 years old and still pressured to diet so that it doesn’t “catch up to me”.

I find this to be paternalist, ignorant, unsupported, and annoying for the following reasons:

1. Typically this person has already inaccurately assessed my current health (ie “Nobody can be healthy at your weight”) but now they want me to believe that they can accurately predict my future health.

2.  What is this “it” that will catch up to me?  I am not outrunning my fat – it’s all right here – I am not a thin woman covered in fat, I am a fat woman who is also a very fit athlete. So what’s going to catch up with me:  my perfect blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose and triglycerides?  My working out and eating healthy?  My strength, stamina, and flexibility?

3.  Everyone is going to die. There is a 100% chance.  I just happen to live in a culture where it almost doesn’t matter why I die – someone will blame it on my fat.  That doesn’t make it true.  This “it will catch up to you” claim is just not supported by the available science, and of all the people who’ve VFHT’d me in my life, NOT ONE has accepted my invitation to cite his/her research (including doctors).

4.  What if I changed the rules of the lottery so that if  you lost, you had to pay the lottery money as a penalty?  Now not only is your chance of winning infintesimmaly small,  but there is a near 100% chance that you’ll end up with LESS money than you had after you bought the ticket.  Would you play?  Now imagine that this isn’t your money we’re talking about – it’s your long term health.  There is not a single study that proves that any weight loss method is effective long term, but many studies indicate that weight cycling (yo-yo dieting) is less healthy than being obese.  Since diets have such an abysmal failure rate over statistically significant sample sizes, if I go on just 2 diets where I lose weight and gain it back (and I have a very high chance of doing just that both times), then I’ve likely damaged my current good health and endangered my future health on a roll of the dice that was obviously a losing bet from the beginning.  The person VFHTing me is asking that I do something they can’t prove is possible, for a reason they can’t prove is valid, with a very high percentage that I’ll end up less healthy at the end.  I’ll pass.

So what do you say to the VFHT?

Here are some possible responses broken down by category.  (As always, I never try to change someone else’s behavior. I ask for qualification and/or I set my boundaries and consequences. )

Quick and simple:

• Cite your research.
• I find it inappropriate for you to make guesses about my future health.
• My health is not your business.   (If, at this point, they bring up tax payer dollars or health care costs, I ask them for an itemized list of things for which their local, state, and federal taxes pay, or health problems that people develop for which causation cannot be proven;  broken down into categories of things they are happy to pay for, and things they don’t want to pay for. If they don’t happen to have that list on hand, I let them know that I’ll be happy to discuss it once they do.)

More detailed/scientific

• I don’t know of a single statistically significant, properly controlled scientific study that supports that statement.  So, either cite your research or I’m going to assume that I know more about this than you do and you are just talking without actually knowing what your talking about.  (Or “talking out of your ass”, depending on my mood).
• You have no way to know that.  Cite your research or I will assume that you are putting my health at risk by talking about things for which you have no actual knowledge or qualifications.  That is completely unacceptable to me.

The pointed response (feel free to mix and match questions/responses with boundary statements)

• How dare you make assumptions about my health?  You may not discuss my health with me.
• I find you completely unqualified to make that statement. Please keep your opinions about my health to yourself.
• My health is not your business and you are not allowed to comment on it.
• You will immediately stop making guesses and assumptions about my future health or this conversation is over.

The snarky responses (I don’t actually recommend these because I prefer some kind of productive conversation if possible, but it’s fun to think about)

• I had no idea you could predict the future!   Would you mind giving me tomorrow’s lottery numbers?
• Actually the fat doesn’t have to catch up with me – I keep it right here…unless you saw some back there that I lost?
• I totally forgot that being thin makes me immortal – thank god you told me or I might have died some day.
• I meant to tell you that I’m actually worried about you.  I read on a website that we are about to experience another ice age and without fat stores to keep you alive and warm, you’re absolutely going to freeze to death.  I know it sounds crazy but it was on the internet so you know it must be true and I’m going to tell everyone!

Remember that you get to choose how people treat you.  If you decide that they don’t get to VFHT you, then you just need to put that plan into action, set boundaries and consequences and get after it.

**ps. I talked to 2 MD's yesterday at length about Health at Every Size, They both seemed in total agreement with the concept. One was very sad because she is a Pediatrician and she gets mom after mom asking how to get her kid to lose weight. They both promised to read the book!

You'll always be older than me :)

Happy Birthday Babe!!

in honor of your birthday some quotes from your fav comedian Mitch Hedburg...

Have I ever said how much I love when you laugh really, really hard and you put your hand over your chest because you are laughing so hard. Even if its not at all funny to me, and even if I am totally in a bad mood I start laughing hysterically too. 

I can't help it.

I think we should only get 3 honks a month on the car horn, because people honk the car horn too much. 3 honks, that's the limit. And then someone cuts you off, ffffft, you press your horn, nothing happens. You're like, "sh**! I wish I wouldn't have seen Ricky on the sidewalk!"

I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.

I was at this casino minding my own business, and this guy came up to me and said, "You're gonna have to move, you're blocking a fire exit." As though if there was a fire, I wasn't gonna run. If you're flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit. I wanna be a race car passenger - just a guy who bugs the driver. "Say man, can I turn on the radio? You should slow down. Why we gotta keep going in circles? Can I put my feet out the window? Man, you really like Tide."

I walked by a drycleaner at 3am, the sign said "Sorry, we're closed." You don't have to be sorry, it's 3am and you're a drycleaner. It would be ridiculous for me to expect you to be open. I'm not gonna walk in at 10am and say "Hey, I walked in at 3am and you guys were closed. Somebody owes me an apology."

I got a business card, cause I wanna win some lunches. That's what my business card says: "Mitch Hedberg, Potential Lunch Winner."

I had a paper route when I was a kid, I was a paper boy. I was supposed to go to 2,000 houses... or 2 dumpsters!

I saw a commercial that said, "forget everything you know about slip covers!" So I did. And it was a load off my mind. Then the commercial tried to sell me slip covers, but I didn't know what the hell they were.

Every McDonald's commercial ends the same way, right? "Prices and participation may vary." I wanna open a McDonald's and not participate in anything. I wanna be a stubborn McDonald's owner. Cheeseburgers? Nope. We got spaghetti! And blankets!

People ask me what words mean... they say, "what does 'composition' mean?" Some people would say, "put it in a sentence." But I need a little more. "Put it in a play."

If I'm out to dinner with a group of friends, and someone offers to pay for the check, I immediately reach for my wallet. Because inside is a note that says "say thanks."

Every book is a children's book, if the kid can read!

My friend said to me "I think the weather's trippy." And I said "No man, it's not the weather that's trippy. Perhaps it is the way that we percieve it that is indeed trippy." Then I thought "man, I should have just said 'yeah'."

I know a lot about cars, I can look at a car's headlights and tell you exactly which way it's coming.

I say the word "totally" way too much. I need to change it and use a word that's different but means the same. "Mitch, do you like submarine sandwiches?" "All-encompassingly!"

• I opened up a yogurt, and underneath the lid it said "please try again", because they were having a contest I was unaware of. But I thought I might have opened the yogurt wrong. Or maybe Yoplait was trying to inspire me. "Come on Mitchell, don't give up... please try again." A message of inspiration from your friends at Yoplait. Fruit on the bottom, hope on top.

They picked the name because of the initials

I’m not so concerned that Meme Roth or Jamie Oliver or internet trolls think fat people deserve to be treated well; and I’m much more concerned that fat people know that they deserve to be treated well.  It’s tough to lead a civil rights movement of people who aren’t sure that they deserve civil rights. And my goal is to let as many people as possible know that Size Acceptance and Health at Every Size are options so that they can make an informed choice.

There are people out there who hate their bodies solely because they don’t think that there’s another choice. They think that their shot at life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness starts 50 pounds from now.  Somewhere there’s an 8 year old girl about to start her first diet because Michelle Obama is waging a War on her.

You deserve to be treated well right now, whether or not you are trying to conform to the cultural stereotype of beauty.  You deserve respect, and you have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Right now. In the body in which you currently reside.  Even if you want to eat differently or move more or whatever, I’m asking that you consider the possibility that your body is amazing and deserving of love and respect right this minute.  Remember that no matter what your body looks like, there’s an extremely decent chance that you are the standard of beauty in some culture somewhere.  Consider that the cure for social stigma is not weight loss, it’s ending social stigma. ~Ragen Chastain, 

* Link to her blog post you gotta give them hope

Jenny Craig is having its "half off" weekend.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, BLAH.

95% of diets fail. The number of people who lose weight and keep it off for five years is statistically so small its hard to even measure.

Yet when diets fail it is not anybody's fault but the person who didn't have enough discipline, gumption, drive, desire to be thin enough. 

right? right?

NO!!!

Remember that dieting may even make you heavier - the more you diet the more your body will raise your setpoint weight to protect against future diets (future famines) as your body interprets it.

Ever heard "I lost x amount of weight a while back but gained it all back and then some...

This is so very profitable to the weight loss industry. 

You diet and depending on whose book, system, or pill you buy they make money.

It fails (not you)- like they knew it would and you try harder the next time.

That is you spend more money on the next system, pill, or even surgery.

They profit.

To further their profits they trump up claims and false studies trumpeting about the obesity epidemic and that health care costs soar because of obesity. PS - according to BMI George Clooney is obese.

Read this article that follows the money. In it says  about the background of the company RTI which released studies say state spend tons of money because of obesity:

"Our activities both mirror and support national priorities and policies as well as diverse commercial, industrial, and academic endeavors," RTI International's website says.  The nonprofit corporation's senior management includes individuals with prior careers at Monsanto Company (President & CEO Victoria F. Haynes), Glaxo, now known asGlaxoSmithKline (Executive VP of Operations Satinder K. Sethi &Executive VP RTI Health Solutions Allen W. Mangel), Salix Pharmaceuticals (Mangel), & DuPont Company (James Trainham, VP Strategic Energy Initiatives). 

Per their 2010 Annual Report, the RTI International Board of Governors includes Robert A. Ingram, former CEO of Glaxo Wellcome. Their Private Sector Client list includes Abbott Laboratories, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly & Company, GE Healthcare, GlaxoSmithKline, The Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies, Medtronics, Merck & Co.,Novartis, Pfizer, PhRMA, Roche, Sanofi-Aventis, Takeda Pharmaceuticals UK, Tioga Pharmaceuticals, & U.S. News & World Report.

U.S. News & World Report? Huh.

Their list of "Other Clients" includes the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation& the World Health Organization. 

The RWJ Foundation was founded by -- you guessed it -- Robert Wood Johnson, scion of the Johnson & Johnson family (of the above-mentioned Johnson & Johnson & Johnson Family Companies).  Johnson & Johnson's products include Splenda(R) No Calorie Sweetener, Sun Crystals (R) All-Natural Sweetener, and "Realize(TM) Adjustable Gastric Band--Personalized Solution for Weight Reduction."  J & J's Medical Devices & Diagnostics Businesses include Ethicon Endo-Surgery, which "develops less invasive surgical equipment used in laparoscopic banding and gastric bypass procedures that can help people conquer life-threatening obesity."

Which means: 

The makers of the Lap band financially support the studies that say "obesity costs states millions of dollars"

so .... that they can talk states into having medicare pay for people's weight loss surgeries.

Surgeries that by the way are KILLING PEOPLE.

• Tamara Walter died Dec. 26, 2010. She was the fourth Lap-Band patient to die who was treated at a chain of clinics advertising in California under the “1-800 Get-Thin” banner
• Laura Lee Faitro died July 26, 2010, of “multi-organ failure and infarction due to shock, secondary to bleeding and sepsis in the abdominal cavity,” according to her autopsy. She was one of the 1-800 Get-Thin victims.
• Cheronna Marie Williams, died May 26, 2011, after Lap-Band surgery in Tijuana.
• Danielle Delango died March 2010 in New York.
• Rebecca Quatinetz, died August 2010, also in New York.
• Bridget Sandoval was injured by Lap-Band surgery after a 1-800 Get-Thin advertiser operated on her despite the fact his medical license had been revoked in 2007.
• Lynita Hetzel was hospitalized in Tennessee in 2006 after allegedly being operated on improperly.

Don't let another diet fail you, injure your happiness and self esteem. Try Health at every size. Eat well because it makes you FEEL well. Exercise because you ENJOY it.

How many people have given up on healthy endeavors because the number on the scale did not support their drive?

 Remember its not about that number. AT. ALL.

Its time for another message - one like this, written in 1973 - way before its time, by members of the Fat Underground.

F

U

for short.

FAT LIBERATION MANIFESTO

by Judy Freespirit and Aldebaran

1. WE believe that fat people are fully entitled to human respect and recognition.

2. WE are angry at mistreatment by commercial and sexist interests. These have exploited our bodies as objects of ridicule, thereby creating an immensely profitable market selling the false promise of avoidance of, or relief from, that ridicule.

3. WE see our struggle as allied with the struggles of other oppressed groups against classism, racism, sexism, ageism, financial exploitation, imperialism and the like.

4. WE demand equal rights for fat people in all aspects of life, as promised in the Constitution of the United States. We demand equal access to goods and services in the public domain, and an end to discrimination against us in the areas of employment, education, public facilities and health services.

5. WE single out as our special enemies the so-called “reducing” industries. These include diet clubs, reducing salons, fat farms, diet doctors, diet books, diet foods and food supplements, surgical procedures, appetite suppressants, drugs and gadgetry such as wraps and “reducing machines”.

WE demand that they take responsibility for their false claims, acknowledge that their products are harmful to the public health, and publish long-term studies proving any statistical efficacy of their products. We make this demand knowing that over 99% of all weight loss programs, when evaluated over a five-year period, fail utterly, and also knowing the extreme proven harmfulness of frequent large changes in weight.

6. WE repudiate the mystified “science” which falsely claims that we are unfit. It has both caused and upheld discrimination against us, in collusion with the financial interests of insurance companies, the fashion and garment industries, reducing industries, the food and drug industries, and the medical and psychiatric establishment.

7. WE refuse to be subjugated to the interests of our enemies. We fully intend to reclaim power over our bodies and our lives. We commit ourselves to pursue these goals together.

FAT PEOPLE OF THE WORLD, UNITE! YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE ….

By Judy Freespirit and Aldebaran
November, 1973

Originally Published by the Fat Underground,
Los Angeles, California USA