Cats are better.

me and the only other gay person in class:

Like, this was a picture taken by an observatory in Arizona

One of our baby girls is fat, in the 99th percentile for her age. She is super cute and sweet. Lately, she has been sick with various breathing issues, so she has been reluctant to take her bottles. Normally, she’ll take 4 ounces of formula at lunch and 8 ounces in the afternoon. Today, I was lucky to get to her take 5 all day.

There was a substitute covering a lunch break in my classroom today. We emphasized to her that we need to keep trying to get the baby to drink her bottle until she finished it. She said, “Why are you guys so worried about taking her bottle?”

My coworker replied, “That’s where all her nutrients are. She needs the nutrients and the water.”

To which the substitute replied, “But she’s so fat. She doesn’t need it.”

By starving her. She insisted that her baby was ‘too fat’ and had an aim to remove any and all ‘chubbyness’ so her baby would be thin. She’d already been warned by her doctor about the baby not getting enough food, but insisted she knew best.

After several months of this her baby passed out cold one day and was rushed into hospital where the doctors found her to have severe malnutrition, a low body temperature and low pulse rate. They asked my cousin what she’d been feeding her daughter and she said “one bottle of skimmed milk a day. I don’t want her growing up fat.”

Even after nearly killing her daughter my cousin maintained her view that fat = bad and ended up with all her kids taken from her because she was starving them and neglecting them.

When your fatphobia leads you to starving your own children then you’ve got serious problems.

Is

Real

She backed off saying, ‘Well he looks fine!” – proving once again that weight bias is not truly about health – But I know many other parents who are not as informed as I am about weight science and size diversity would react to this interaction by policing their child’s food intake, if not as an infant, then when he was an older child. This is exactly the type of seemingly-inconsequential interaction that starts the ball rolling on a lifetime of dieting, disordered eating, negative body image, and weight-based abuse for too many fat people.

Years later when he was five, another doctor measured his weight and height and commented that he is off the charts on both, but “at least he is in proportion.” And if he was not “in proportion,” I am sure I would have been advised once again to “watch his weight.” 

I no longer allow healthcare providers to weight my children unless it is absolutely medically necessary. They are unable to control their weight talk, which is a known harm for children.

1. The 4 years old daughter of a friend of mine came to our house to spend the weekend. She gave me a letter from her mom that said that the child was in a glutenfree diet because she was getting ‘awfully fat’ when eating cookies or bread (my celiac ass; who gets dhiarrea and loses a scary amount of weight whenever I eat something with gluten was like ’???’).

You can bet that I went to the supermarket with the kid and told her ‘go & take whatever you feel like eating’ and the poor child came back smiling with her arms full of biscuits and cupcakes.

She didn’t got sick (as a celiac would get) and told me later that she hated the diet her mother made her follow; because her cousins didn’t had to pass through that.

And what’s the scariest thing about this story? Her mother was a NURSE. A fucking nurse who didn’t have a clue of the harm that she was doing to her daughter’s body!

2. My little sister started to feel fatigued and dizzy at 9 years old. She felt nauseated at the sight of food and had abdominal pain that increased with physical activity.

Mom got her to the ER and the doctor dismissed it saying: ‘she’s fat and probably is feeling ill after eating too much burgers, get her to make some exercise and she will be better in no time’.My mom didn’t felt ok with the diagnosis and took my sister with a second doctor who also told her that ‘the child was just fat’.

My sister’s skin was starting to get yellow as the days passed and the abdominal pain was getting awful so my mom (heaven bless her!) got her to the ER for the third time:

SHE HAD STAGE 4 HEPATITIS AND WAS ABOUT TO DIE.

She survived after a long and painful recovery who involved being in bed for a whole year (remember that we’re speaking of a 9 years old child). Luckily they saved her liver and she didn’t went through a transplant… but let this sink:

If it weren’t for my mother, fatphobia would have killed her. Fatphobia kills kids and teenagers, fatphobia kills inocent people everyday. It treats human beings as lesser than others and hurts them in their most vulnerable times.

FUCKING TAKE NOTE OF THIS!

“What diagnostic tests would you run if you thought I was thin?” followed by “Please note in my file that you declined to offer me these tests to rule out other causes, and that your only diagnosis is that you think I am fat.”

Then, wait for them to type it in by saying, “I will wait while you update my chart and print out the documentation I’ve just asked you to make.”

Then ask: “Who is the ombudsman or patient advocate here? What is their name, how do I contact them, and what hours do they work?”

the one petition everyone is sharing is for João Pedro, was was killed inside his home, he was shot on his back. 70, and i repeat, 70 shots were fired against the house he was in, and the police claimed it was because they were in a confront. everyone near his house confirmed there wasn’t anything going around.

but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

SAY THEIR NAMES

LUCAS CUSTÓDIO DOS SANTOS. he was a sixteen years old boy who got shot on his leg after returning from a soccer game. his last words were “you don’t have to kill me, sir”

CARLOS MAGNO DE OLIVEIRA NASCIMENTO (18 yo, student), CARLOS ALBERTO DA SILVA (21 yo, painter and bricklawyer) EVERSON GONÇALVES SILOTE (26 yo, taxi driver) AND THIAGO DA COSTA CORREIA DA SILVA (19 yo, mechanic). They were killed on an event now known as “Chacina do Borel” it happened in 2003 and no one was held responsible.

HERINALDO VINICIUS DE SANTANA. he was an eleven years old boy who left his house to buy a ping pong ball. he was with money on his hands. His last words were “I want my mom”

ALAN DE SOUZA LIMA. He was fifteen and his last words “we were just playing, sir”

DOUGLAS RODRIGUES, 17 years old. His last words: “Why did you shoot me, Sr?”. The policemen was acquitted for lack of evidence.

REMEMBER MATEUS SANTOS DE MORAIS, FIVE YEARS OLD. FIVE. YEARS. OLD. He got shot while playing in front of his house. SAY HIS NAME.

ÁGATHA FELIX. 8 YEARS OLD. She was returning home with her mother when she got shot. FOR NO REASON. SAY HER NAME.

FABIO DOS SANTOS VIERA, 21 years. He was shot because, according to the police, he was holding a gun. That gun was never found.

EVALDO DOS SANTOS ROSA, 51 years old. 257 SHOTS FIRED AT HIS CAR. SAY HIS NAME. His family was inside of it too, including a 7 year old kid. Evaldo died instantly. NO JUSTICE NO PEACE

MATHEUS OLIVEIRA, 23. The Police got >>scared<< and shot him in the head. He had just become a father.

MARCUS VINICIUS, 14 years. shot during a police operation while returning from school, his last words:“ Didn’t they see that I was wearing school clothes, mom?”.

EMILLY CAETANO DA COSTA, 9 years old, was shot two times on the back. The police said the vehicle her family was in was suspicious. They chased the car and shot five times. Her mom, dad, and two sisters were in the car.

LUCAS, 14 years old,disappeared after some cops take him out from his home, his body was found floating at a lake in a park.

MARIA EDUARDA, 13 YEARS OLD. Killed inside of her SCHOOL! SAY HER NAME

victims of the Costa Barros massacre, killed by the police with 111 SHOTS while celebrating the youngest’s first salary.

Wilton Estever Domingos Jr, 20. Wesley Castro Rodrigues, 25. Cleiton Corrêa de Souza, 18. Carlos Eduardo Silva Souza, 16. Roberto Silva de Souza, 16. Victims of the Costa Barros massacre, killed by the police with 111 SHOTS while celebrating the youngest’s first salary.

PEDRO GONZAGA, 19, killed by a supermarket security guard. He was suffocated and suffered cardiac arrest.

KETELLEN GOMES, 5 years old. Was riding her bike when she was shot during a police operation. Her last words was “Mom, don’t cry, no, mom”. The target from the shooters was Davi Gabriel Martins Nascimento, 17 years old, who also died.

75% of those killed by the police in Brazil are black.

Black people are 147% more likely to be murdered than white people in this country.

Brazil currently has the highest rate of killing of Blacks in the world outside Africa. It far surpasses the U.S.

EVERY 23 SECONDS, A BLACK PERSON IS KILLED IN BRAZIL.