Of bones and fandoms

[Image ID: An Instagram post by @carriedennett from wwww.nutritionbycarrie.com.

1st image: A photo of a white woman on a bicycle with the text, "Does weight loss equal health? Why the pursuit of weight loss might actually be getting in the way of your long-term well-being."

end ID]

The post continues:

What actually makes us healthier (but not necessarily thinner:

Enjoyable physical activity

Eating a variety of nutritious foods

Eating enough to be satisfied

Nurturing meaningful social connections

Cultivating body acceptance

Prioritizing quality sleep

How dieting can erode our health:

Restricting food, leading to nutrient shortfalls or bingeing

Weight cycling (losing and regaining), which increases body fat and decreases muscle

Avoiding doctors because of your weight

Skipping social gatherings to void "off-limits" food

Skimping on sleep for extra exercise

The hidden harm of weight stigma

Our healthcare system often assumes higher weight = poorer health. But research shows that weight stigma (whether external or internal) increases the stress hormone cortisol.

Chronic stress plays a casual role in cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and other conditions.

Missing questions in weight-centric research

When researchers see poor health in larger bodies, they rarely ask:

Could it be the physiological effects of weight shame?

Could it be due to experiencing stigma at the gym?

If we don't measure fitness levels and weight stigma, how do we know body weight is the actual culprit?

What the Diabetes Prevention Program really proved

The DPP is often cited as proof that weight loss prevents diabetes. But participants were far more successful at meeting their physical activity goals than their weight loss goals. It's actually evidence that regular movement reduces risk!

The weight-inclusive approach

This approach makes room for all bodies without dictating that people must change their size to be healthy.

Remember: the exact same things that improve health for a thin person improve health for a fat person.

Making the mental shift

My policy is this: based on the limits created by the manufacturer we need to protect ourselves.

Carnival rides have saftey limits and while missing out sucks I'm not gonna risk my life. That said: a modern ride should take a variety of sizes into factor.

Fat people aren't the only ones excluded from rides either, they have height limits and limb requirements. The problem is the manufactures make rides for the bell curve crowd, it takes money to be inclusive and the more people talk about the issue the more pressure they feel to try to make inclusive rides. It's possible they just have to see the money in it. (Remember how car manufacturers used thin average cis men as their test subjects for DECADES when crash testing? And how its only begun to change so other drivers can actually be safe?)

Limits and requirements should be POSTED clearly in line. And staff need to be informed and not push the saftey of riders. It's embarrassing, it's isolating, it pisses me off but we can advocate for inclusive design while also keeping ourselves alive. Current designs are exclusionary and discriminatory against many groups of people. We are just more common and thus encounter it more often.

As for exit rows on planes I read the reasoning, hey air lines, why are you even having passengers help. Your staff should be able to manage the physical aspect alone. Given that the population is aging the pool of people who can push or lift 30 - 60 pounds is lowering by the year. A major flaw in this whole discussion.

"The seat belt extender is a tripping hazard" fair enough. Since yall wanna be so cheap and wont replace seat belts that roll back up like a car seat belt you have the ones that just flop around. But so are high heels. And flip flops. Not an awful policy but maybe be more consistent about tripping hazards in an emergency. A double standard.

Actually I didnt even see it mentioned that exit row/emergency exit customers had to be wearing closed toed lace up shoes. That should be policy in general if it isn't.

"the seats are more narrow" totally fair, some of us can squeeze in but it hurts like hell. This is a design limit, it falls under manufacturer limit.

"You have to be able to push/pull 30 - 60 pounds" thin people can't all do this either. Its a fair requirement and doesn’t actually logically disinclude fat people. Holley Mangold would be more than qualified to handle the door but would be excluded because of narrow seats and belt issues.

So this is a real mixed bag. The tripping hazard is a double standard 100%.

The narrow seats are part of the saftey plan which is morally neutral imo. The way the tray is put away narrows the seat space. Unless you want to completely remove access to trays I can't think of a better approach.

The strength requirement is what it is, we don't want easy open Boeing doors. This too I'm saying is neutral.

So mixed bag. Things definitely could be better. Things can be better. Rides blatantly discriminate against certain riders, planes are a hellscape but at a minimum need less double standards.

Remember yall keep yourselves alive, advocate for change and dont tolerate fools who say "just loose weight".

Some Fucking Scam, it seems a little sketchy now, but its lent legitimacy by the number of people they're paying to talk about it. Five years from now there will be a four hour video essay about how its a fucking scam and stole millions of dollars and leaked literally all of your data, but right now? It seems mildly convenient.

so thank you for this ask for 3 reasons. one, i have now spent over two hours looking at pictures of hagfish and selecting my favorites, which is one of the best uses for my time i've yet experienced. two, in the course of looking up pictures of hagfish i have found several detailed marine biology websites which were finally able to provide sources and details on hagfish sexual function (answer: there are at minimum reports of some sort of bipotential gonad situation in some immature hagfish of several species but the actual details of their adult reproduction are fairly mysterious and the claim that they're bidirectional serial sex-changers has not been proven to current standards such that many researchers are unwilling to count them among known species that do that). three, i have now learned that there are over 70 known species of hagfish, which is information that somehow escaped me until now. and quite probably more species than that, given as they live at depth and mostly aren't that visually distinct from each other, because they are the perfect animal.

anyway let's go. content label: i am going to describe the basic mechanics of how they eat but i promise i am holding back.

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i like this one because it shows the way they tie themselves in knots. it's specifically an overhand knot from the tail to the head, though i don't know if this behavior has been observed in every species (probably not) so it would be interesting to know if they all do overhands.

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this is objectively adorable.

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another hagfish in a sponge but this time you can see their tooth plates. smiling at us. often people assume the 'o' in their face is their mouth but that's actually their nostril. they have a unique and powerful chemoreceptor system that majorly incorporates their nostril but also takes in information from all over the body. (x) and they have a mouth but no jaw. the two tooth plates pinch together when retracted, which grips onto their prey. for larger prey that they can't swallow whole they grip onto the flesh with their tooth plates and then tie themselves in that overhand knot which they move down their body from their tail to their head, pushing against their prey and pulling a mouthful of flesh free.

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i like that they seem to just kind of hang out together. i don't think anyone's specifically studied how social they are? they seem to show up in high density and pacific hagfish at least seem to share burrows a fair amount. can i please have infinite budget to study every single detail of hagfish forever. what are they doing down there.

honorable mention to the museum of new zealand footage of their bait trap and multiple animals failing to predate on hagfish and an instance of successful predation by a hagfish

the pictures are just pacific hagfish because it's difficult to find pictures of the other species, particularly pictures where they're alive. but you get to see different species of hagfish in the video! and i don't have a favorite species currently but possibly i will in the future.