Fat-Friendly Campuses?

[Graditude]

If any of you actually care to educate yourselves, here ...

 

Here are some great graphics that illustrate the many causes of obesity...

 

Oh gee, look at all the factors that aren't under an individual's control!  Imagine that!

 

The following is the best illustration of all the many factors that affect obesity.  It is an incredibly complex problem...

 

So please, educate yourself... 

 

These links were interesting, thanks. I think everyone appreciates the complexity of the problem. But for the sake of argument -- which may actually be the entire point of this thread, come to think of it  -- consider alcoholism. It's malady with many causes: upbringing, personality, genetics... And yet, in the final analysis, you cannot get drunk unless you put alcohol in your body. Likewise, obesity has many causes. But you cannot get fat unless you put more calories in your body than you burn.

 

Of course, it's another matter entirely to treat people cruelly because they are fat. But don't you think the biological fact can be lost in all the interconnecting arrows you provided in your diagrams? Maybe the most important thing for people to understand is that they should eat better food and move their bodies. I believe there was once a MAD TV skit on this very topic, so QED.

 

Also, I don't understand why some people here are accusing the Gnome of trolling this thread. I think it's refreshing to hear a grad student who is not sanctimoniously good and kind. I always think that excessively nice people are hiding something.

[Geologizer]

 ...But the world doesn't really stigmatize a voice against unhealthy eating/lifestyle choice.

 

Don't we? 

 

Why are having an open discussions about obesity, and launching large scale measures to combat it so difficult? Why is it that we have to walk on eggshells around this topic? There are so many "causes" for obesity, and a few that are not within the person's control. Further, the percentage of people who fall into those categories is tiny. To the medical community causes /= excuses, meaning causes can be combated. To the public it's become "oh you can't talk or judge because there are so many things 'out of their control'." Things like genetic predisposition, culture, stress etc. are all manageable, like most. Most of it is well within control, but what you need to do to control it is different from person to person. Likewise, whether they control it is whether they make it a priority to make that change. In America, our priorities are: say that you don't judge, and if asked regurgitate the, "be proud, you're wonderful and perfect, don't change yourself, it's not you, it's them," line. Be 'PC' because you don't know the cause. You can't say, "hey, I'm sorry, but even if you have predisposition or something that makes it harder for you, it's still on you, you're responsible." I mean, you can, but you'd be considered an asshole for saying it, or at least cold, and a collective voice on saying that doesn't exist. What is that if not a stigma? That message gets shut down, and instead the message has to be watered down and convoluted to "hey, you're great and awesome, don't change, but you should try to change a bit, but don't worry you're great already." 

 

 

Btw, I'm not saying that I'm overly concerned about this particular topic, because frankly it's not something that I deal with daily. It's just something I've noticed, and the opportunity presented itself to put it out there to see what others thought. 

[TakeruK]

I agree with just playing sports to have fun. I think it's a little different when you're a kid, as opposed to a grad student, because you're still trying everything out and seeing what you like. If you're playing sports, for example, as a kid, it's assumed you actually want to do well, so kids will torture you if you suck. At least that's how it was for me. When you're a 30-year old PhD student with a beer belly, I think your dreams of being a pro athlete are over and it's assumed it's just for fun.

 

 As a kid, I might have dreamed of playing hockey in the NHL one day but I never seriously considered that and I didn't really approach sports as "this is something I want to do well in". As a kid, I approached my math homework with the mindset "Yeah! I want to practice this a lot and get really good at it!!" but when it came to sports, my mindset was "Wow this is really fun and I want to keep playing!". Of course I wanted to win, it's a ton of fun to win, but I didn't participate in many sports because of the vast skill level difference between kids like me (not particularly good at sports) and kids who would go on to become athlete of the year, get varsity scholarships etc. My point in the above post is that I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to have leagues where all the kids are crappy players and they go out to have fun and then eat pizza. When I was a kid, I didn't enjoy playing with the kids who are good at their sport and when I screwed up, I would get made fun of, or even worse, feel bad that I let the team down. Or, the good players would not pass the ball/puck/whatever to me since I would likely screw up. I would have been way happier playing with others in my skill/competition level. However, most of the time, the school didn't have the resources (or the inclination) to split up the kids/PE classes in this way.

 

This is a grad school forum. We come here to find out how long to make our SOPs, who to ask for an LOR, which offer to accept, how to respectively reject an offer, etc. Every now and then people come on here asking for advice about happiness, love, marriage, children, money, hopelessness, body image, weight, health, etc. This isn't really the place for it, but if you bring it here, don't expect a bunch of, "Aww don't worry, sweetie. You're wonderful the way you are!" At least not from me. As much as I'm willing to tell you your SOP/GPA/GRE sucks, I'm willing to tell you your lifestyle/personality sucks.

 

I agree that when people here ask for help directly, it's not helpful if we just "coddle" them and just say that they're great etc. If I see a bad SOP and they asked for help, I point out what I see are the issues. If someone is complaining about their program but after getting the details, it turns out it's really the student's fault, I suggest ways to change their behavior! I don't really see anything immensely objectionable in your posts in this particular thread--while perhaps I might be more on the "coddle" side of the line and you may be a little bit more on the "tough love" side of the line, my main reactions were to other people's less constructive and more hurtful comments. (Also, the OP didn't directly ask for help with their physical problems). 

 

Consider the hypothetical situation:

It's mid-terms week in your class. Test grades are to be posted outside your office, and students come to see their grade on their own time - everyone can see everyone else's grades. While grading, you notice that one student totally bombed the test. The student isn't overtly disregarding the class - comes to class, doesn't disrupt others, etc. But still, totally bombed. You have two choices.

1. You decide that you should give the student a passing grade, but make sure to tell that student that they really need to improve. After all, grades are going to be public. Everyone can see it, and that's going to be really tough. Further, perhaps there was some really good excuse for that poor test. Maybe that student has a learning disorder, or had a family emergency, or had some other cause out of their control. You empathize, so you pat yourself on the back because you didn't make a harsh snap judgment, save them some embarrassment, and you're sure that they'll get it turned around.

2. You give the grade they deserve. You know that everyone is going to be able to see the grades, and if you inflate their grade, they're going to see it's not that far off from everyone else's. Even if you make a point to tell them they're far behind, you see the obvious mixed message and at that point you're part of the problem, complicit. You acknowledge that if something extraordinary was at fault, then they'll take the grade with a grain of salt and move on.

I don't think I have to articulate the parallels to this thread, but I think we can mostly agree option 2 is the most responsible and constructive course of action.

I think your hypothetical example is unfair because what you are describing is actually against FERPA regulations (as explained to us during my orientation anyways) and also explicitly against the policies at every school I've attended! You can't even post a list of grades by student number, because those can be used to identify the person. In fact, it's against my school's current policy to even leave a stack of graded problem sets by your office door (or in front of the classroom) so that students can come by and pick them up because this allows others to leaf through the stack and see other people's grades. (This can be allowed if you get every person in the class to sign a FERPA release).

 

If we wanted to post grades on a board, we would have to assign every student a "codename" that is not linked to their actual identity in any way, let them know what their name is and then post the grades. This means we'd have to email each student individually to give them their name, but if we do this, then why not just include the grades in the email and skip the codename nonsense!

 

Instead, when I give out midterm grades, what I do is speak to each student one at a time and show them their grade and also show them what their maximum grade could be. I do this during a tutorial or lab session where I am able to pull a student aside for 2-3 minutes while the rest of the class works on something else. This is also the perfect time to honestly let a failing student know that they are not performing up to standard at all. I usually make a distribution of grades as well, which provides a very useful visual aid in telling the student "you are seriously falling behind your classmates" in some cases. I am usually only responsible for 20-30 students per class, so this is a manageable number to do one-on-one. I also take the opportunity to figure out if there is anything else I can do for a poorly performing student to help them get their grades back on track. Sometimes they just need a few extra encouragements to show up to office hours and getting help on what they are stuck on instead of just getting zero.

 

I don't think your fabricated hypothetical situation is an actual parallel to the situation at hand, anyways. As hashslinger said, I don't have the same expertise/qualifications to help the OP with their body weight as I do to help my students with the course that I am TAing. In this situation, "option 2" is clearly the right choice because it's our job as a TA to properly evaluate and give accurate feedback to our students.

[CommPhD20]

The assumption that overweight people haven't noticed or don't desire to become healthier is always kind of silly to me. When I was a pitcher in baseball, you'd always hear the crowd cheer to "throw strikes." Really? I had no idea that was what I was supposed to be doing. Thanks!

[Guest Gnome Chomsky]

 

I think your hypothetical example is unfair because what you are describing is actually against FERPA regulations (as explained to us during my orientation anyways) and also explicitly against the policies at every school I've attended! You can't even post a list of grades by student number, because those can be used to identify the person. In fact, it's against my school's current policy to even leave a stack of graded problem sets by your office door (or in front of the classroom) so that students can come by and pick them up because this allows others to leaf through the stack and see other people's grades. (This can be allowed if you get every person in the class to sign a FERPA release).

 

If we wanted to post grades on a board, we would have to assign every student a "codename" that is not linked to their actual identity in any way, let them know what their name is and then post the grades. This means we'd have to email each student individually to give them their name, but if we do this, then why not just include the grades in the email and skip the codename nonsense!

 

Instead, when I give out midterm grades, what I do is speak to each student one at a time and show them their grade and also show them what their maximum grade could be. I do this during a tutorial or lab session where I am able to pull a student aside for 2-3 minutes while the rest of the class works on something else. This is also the perfect time to honestly let a failing student know that they are not performing up to standard at all. I usually make a distribution of grades as well, which provides a very useful visual aid in telling the student "you are seriously falling behind your classmates" in some cases. I am usually only responsible for 20-30 students per class, so this is a manageable number to do one-on-one. I also take the opportunity to figure out if there is anything else I can do for a poorly performing student to help them get their grades back on track. Sometimes they just need a few extra encouragements to show up to office hours and getting help on what they are stuck on instead of just getting zero.

 

I don't think your fabricated hypothetical situation is an actual parallel to the situation at hand, anyways. As hashslinger said, I don't have the same expertise/qualifications to help the OP with their body weight as I do to help my students with the course that I am TAing. In this situation, "option 2" is clearly the right choice because it's our job as a TA to properly evaluate and give accurate feedback to our students.

I don't want to change the direction of this thread, but I just wanted to comment on the FERPA/grading thing real quick. 

 

I didn't know what FERPA was, but I've always known there had to be some rules associated with not revealing every student's grades to the public. However, I've noticed the professor usually doesn't go to great lengths to make the grades secret.

 

One of my professors actually made the "code name" thing. He uploads a spread sheet on his blog (where all his assignments/notes are also posted) and every grade is associated with an arbitrary 4-digit number. Then we find out our 4-digit number when he hands back the physical copy of the test. The number is written on the back of the test. If you can't make it to class for some reason, you can just email him and he'll give you the number. Anyway, if you do come to class, though, all the tests are spread out on the desk at the beginning of class, so you can sort through it and basically look at anyone's grade. Kinda defeats the purpose of the secret 4-digit codes. 

 

But in most of the classes I've taken, after the grades are in, the teacher will usually go up to the front board and write down a range of grades and then put a tally mark indicating how many students received that particular grade. They'll usually also announce those students who got the highest grades. I know those students probably don't mind their great accomplishments being announced, but it still is sort of breaking the privacy rule. In this case, the rule exists but no professor will get in trouble if he breaks it in a certain way. For example, you'll be fine if you announce the top 5 grades in the class, but your job might be on the line if you announce the bottom 5 grades in the class. 

Edited March 23, 2014 by Gnome Chomsky

[pears]

Since I'm in nutrition, I actually have studied obesity. It isn't as simple as calories in = calories out, as some of you think.  It also isn't always about personal choice.

 

If any of you actually care to educate yourselves, here are some good studies and other articles on the topic:

 

The epidemiology of overweight and obesity: public health crisis or moral panic?

 

2006 Canadian clinical practice guidelines on the management and prevention of obesity in adults and children

 

ECONOMIC CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF OBESITY

 

Here are some great graphics that illustrate the many causes of obesity:

 

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h232/nutritionrunner/determinants_zps32a90d05.jpg

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h232/nutritionrunner/obesityfactors_zps9041a94e.png

 

Oh gee, look at all the factors that aren't under an individual's control!  Imagine that!

 

The following is the best illustration of all the many factors that affect obesity.  It is an incredibly complex problem:

http://www.shiftn.com/obesity/Full-Map.html

 

So please, educate yourself about the causes and treatment of obesity before you go assuming it is the individual's fault.  The research being done in this area indicates that there are many complex, interacting factors that affect obesity and obesity rates.  It isn't always a matter of eating too much and moving too little.  It is much, much more complex.  Energy balance is only part of the equation.

 

Thank you for sharing all of this! I'm leading a seminar discussion about biopolitics, the embodiment of inequality, etc. in a couple of weeks, & weight/obesity comes up in scholarly papers very frequently. It's amazing how complicated the web of nutrition, poverty, education, gender, etc. is. Although it's a touchy topic — & for good reason — I'm trying to educate myself about epigenetics & the debates surrounding it, too. (If you have any relevant papers, let me know!)

[TakeruK]

But in most of the classes I've taken, after the grades are in, the teacher will usually go up to the front board and write down a range of grades and then put a tally mark indicating how many students received that particular grade. They'll usually also announce those students who got the highest grades. I know those students probably don't mind their great accomplishments being announced, but it still is sort of breaking the privacy rule. In this case, the rule exists but no professor will get in trouble if he breaks it in a certain way. For example, you'll be fine if you announce the top 5 grades in the class, but your job might be on the line if you announce the bottom 5 grades in the class. 

 

I don't usually see FERPA policies heavily enforced. But it could be a generational thing--older profs who were around before FERPA will probably continue to things their way. I have noticed that every single one of my TAs in my current school (who have had the FERPA training recently) have been very good at following these policies (I have noticed zero things that might be FERPA infractions in any of my dozen or so classes). So, I would imagine that eventually, keeping grades private will be second-nature. I think it's pretty easy and not any real extra work to comply with FERPA.

[Graditude]

FERPA FERPA FERPA

FERPA infractions

comply with FERPA.

This is the single most useful thing I have learned on GC! Here the required practice is to stand in the hallways and read everyone's grades aloud! My first exam as a TA would have been my last.

[ExponentialDecay]

America Runs on Douchebaggery

[ExponentialDecay]

Also, is it like, totally okay that we're talking about this chick like she's some abstract theory or fictional character? She has an account on gradcafe, so apparently that makes her a person with her own cognition of her own life. If she's eating more calories than she's burning, she can tell you that - and that would save you speculating on it and all this other shit. 

 

But seriously, do you even lift, bro? Because I'd like to see you talk your calories in-calories out bullshit on a 50% protein diet.

[sylark]

That's a really upbeat view of how disability is approached in schools. I have a friend transferring from a CC to a 4 yr college and she frequently needs to use a wheelchair. She texted me yesterday that the college she was looking at had little to nothing in the way of a DRC for physical disabilities and that the tour group left behind her and her father while they were trying to navigate with her chair. 

 

For those whom walking is not easy, you can't simply just say, "I'm sure they'll be accommodating!" because they may, in fact, be the opposite of that. 

Because your second-hand account anecdote of an undergraduate program at an undisclosed school is somehow indicative that grad school programs don't uphold Federal Regulation, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act. 

 

Accommodations will be made, in the vast majority of instance. Unless you want to claim that most schools are breaking Federal law?

 

Title II of the ADA covers state funded schools such as universities, community colleges and vocational schools. Title III of the ADA covers private colleges and vocational schools. If a school receives federal dollars regardless of whether it is private or public it is also covered by the regulations of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act requiring schools to make their programs accessible to qualified students with disabilities.

 

Those with physical disabilities should apply to all schools that fit their academic interests first and foremost.

Please don't spread misinformation, it's not beneficial to anyone. 

Edited March 23, 2014 by sylark

[Graditude]

America Runs on Douchebaggery

Is it a Dunkin Donuts reference? Did you know that Crunkins are advertised in Spain as follows: Croissant o Dunkin? Pues, Crunkin! Por qué elegir si lo puedes tener todo?! I thought I'd better mention this to provide a bridge back to the topic of obesity.

[ExponentialDecay]

Is it a Dunkin Donuts reference? Did you know that Crunkins are advertised in Spain as follows: Croissant o Dunkin? Pues, Crunkin! Por qué elegir si lo puedes tener todo?! I thought I'd better mention this to provide a bridge back to the topic of obesity.

 

[ExponentialDecay]

Those with physical disabilities should apply to all schools that fit their academic interests first and foremost.

Please don't spread misinformation, it's not beneficial to anyone. 

 

Your first statement is correct. Generally speaking, the American legal institution is stable enough that an obvious lack of compliance with regulations would eventually be righted, even if many years and dollars later. However, the scope of disability is so broad and compliance across a variety of institutions so tenuous that pointing out that not every university will have accommodations for every disability is not misinformation. The way you put it, however, could be taken as minimization of experience, though.

[DigDeep(inactive)]

How did this thread get diverted from the topic at hand: Sean Connery's red speedo outfit in Zardoz.

 

 

That is what we were talking about, right?........?

[Graditude]

How did this thread get diverted from the topic at hand: Sean Connery's red speedo outfit in Zardoz.

 

 

That is what we were talking about, right?........?

Certainly what some of us were thinking about, apparently haha. I've just googled it, and now I'm also thinking about it -- thank you. It was the first mankini?

[Guest Gnome Chomsky]

I just put too much hot sauce in my Bloody Mary. Not that I'm complaining.

[Geologizer]

*facepalm...

How someone could read what I wrote and think I was actually talking about grades is really incredible. Metaphors...whether it's a 100% realistic situation is not the point. Lol

[SocGirl2013]

I am really disappointed to see some of the fat-shaming posts on Grad Cafe. If intelligent, scholarly people going to get graduate degrees still stigmatize obesity as sheer laziness, it's very hard to criticize the average person on the street, the media, etc. Smh. 

Edited March 24, 2014 by SocGirl2013

[ExponentialDecay]

*facepalm...

How someone could read what I wrote and think I was actually talking about grades is really incredible. Metaphors...whether it's a 100% realistic situation is not the point. Lol

 

lol but the whole point of the metaphor is that its logic is consistent with the logic of the thing it refers to lol fail.

[hashslinger]

*facepalm...

How someone could read what I wrote and think I was actually talking about grades is really incredible. Metaphors...whether it's a 100% realistic situation is not the point. Lol

 

Well, hmm. Other than the fact that you just got all facepalmy about the nicest poster on the forum, I think that what you're describing was an analogy, not a metaphor. And since we're nitpicking people's reactions here, I'd have to say that your analogy was not good. An analogy's power basically rests on its ability to make a connection between two dissimilar things both felicitous and logical. Yours, to be honest, just left me scratching my head. It was like ... coddling and grade-inflating teachers:poorly-served students::us on the forum:fat people everywhere? Yeah, not seeing the connection. Not even remotely.

 

Moreover, I thought that example you produced was indeed bizarre because it reduced all possibilities to two really terrible choices: humiliate your students publicly (unethical and, as TakeruK pointed out, actually a violation of student rights) or doctor their grades (also unethical). I'm not quite sure if the take-away was that we shouldn't shy away from publicly naming and shaming fat people (something that I pointed out society does already both explicitly and implicitly) or if that shame is a great motivator for losing weight (all the research on that is currently pointing to ... no). So, no, I don't think anyone actually thought you were literally talking about grades. They were a little perplexed, I think, that you were elevating a certain course of action as the "right choice" when it was clearly unethical to begin with.

 

In any case, I'm beginning to understand why other places on the internet completely ban "fatwank."

[RunnerGrad]

These links were interesting, thanks. I think everyone appreciates the complexity of the problem. But for the sake of argument -- which may actually be the entire point of this thread, come to think of it  -- consider alcoholism. It's malady with many causes: upbringing, personality, genetics... And yet, in the final analysis, you cannot get drunk unless you put alcohol in your body. Likewise, obesity has many causes. But you cannot get fat unless you put more calories in your body than you burn.

 

Of course, it's another matter entirely to treat people cruelly because they are fat. But don't you think the biological fact can be lost in all the interconnecting arrows you provided in your diagrams? Maybe the most important thing for people to understand is that they should eat better food and move their bodies. I believe there was once a MAD TV skit on this very topic, so QED.

 

Also, I don't understand why some people here are accusing the Gnome of trolling this thread. I think it's refreshing to hear a grad student who is not sanctimoniously good and kind. I always think that excessively nice people are hiding something.

 

There's one huge difference between alcoholism and obesity.  Nobody needs to drink alcohol to live.  Everyone needs to eat in order to live.  It may be through enteral or parenteral nutrition, but if you don't get food into your body, you are going to die.

 

If it were simply a matter of consuming fewer calories then we wouldn't have climbing rates of obesity in the developed world, and we wouldn't have the dual burden in the developing world (where on the one hand you have climbing rates of obesity in some segements of society, while still having undernutrition in other segments).

 

I don't have the references handy, but in multiple clinical nutrition courses I have learned the following.

 

Realistic amounts of weight loss are:

3-5% through diet and exercise

5-15% through medications

20-30% through bariatric surgery

 

If it were simply a matter of consuming fewer calories and exercising more, than the percentage weight loss for diet and exercise would be a lot higher than 3-5%.  Sure, there are some people who manage to lose more and keep it off, but they are the exception, rather than the rule.

 

For those interested, here are some other papers that address obesity:

Obesity is a sign – over-eating is a symptom: an aetiological framework for the assessment and management of obesity

A POPULATION HEALTH APPROACH TO OBESITY IN CANADA

Early-life determinants of overweight and obesity: a review of systematic reviews

 

[Geologizer]

Well, hmm. Other than the fact that you just got all facepalmy about the nicest poster on the forum, I think that what you're describing was an analogy, not a metaphor. And since we're nitpicking people's reactions here, I'd have to say that your analogy was not good. An analogy's power basically rests on its ability to make a connection between two dissimilar things both felicitous and logical. Yours, to be honest, just left me scratching my head. It was like ... coddling and grade-inflating teachers:poorly-served students::us on the forum:fat people everywhere? Yeah, not seeing the connection. Not even remotely.

 

Moreover, I thought that example you produced was indeed bizarre because it reduced all possibilities to two really terrible choices: humiliate your students publicly (unethical and, as TakeruK pointed out, actually a violation of student rights) or doctor their grades (also unethical). I'm not quite sure if the take-away was that we shouldn't shy away from publicly naming and shaming fat people (something that I pointed out society does already both explicitly and implicitly) or if that shame is a great motivator for losing weight (all the research on that is currently pointing to ... no). So, no, I don't think anyone actually thought you were literally talking about grades. They were a little perplexed, I think, that you were elevating a certain course of action as the "right choice" when it was clearly unethical to begin with.

 

 

I agree that he's very nice in all of his posts. I don't know what that has to do with anything though. I also don't know that I was nit-picking anything. Simply pointing out that it was completely obvious that I wasn't talking about grades at all, but got 3 paragraphs about FERPA guidelines. The point of my analogy which was to pose a thought experiment, a hypothetical, not a corollary. 

 

Now, you've pointed out the disconnect that I admit I didn't consider. I really don't really buy the ethical argument about why grades can't be made public like in the situation described. I know that  FERPA exists, again, not the point. I think it stems from the same logic that I'm disagreeing with on the obesity front: empathy trumping people being able to deal with adversity. We're so adversity averse now that if someone experiences adversity then there is some systemic problem that needs to be fixed. I think there is indeed a systemic problem, as I've indicated, but I think it's much deeper than the front the siren-chaser 'PC' attorney swarm is currently working on. Hope that clears things up a bit. 

Edited March 24, 2014 by Geologizer

[TakeruK]

Now, you've pointed out the disconnect that I admit I didn't consider. I really don't really buy the ethical argument about why grades can't be made public like in the situation described. I know that  FERPA exists, again, not the point. I think it stems from the same logic that I'm disagreeing with on the obesity front: empathy trumping people being able to deal with adversity. We're so adversity averse now that if someone experiences adversity then there is some systemic problem that needs to be fixed. I think there is indeed a systemic problem, as I've indicated, but I think it's much deeper than the front the siren-chaser 'PC' attorney swarm is currently working on. Hope that clears things up a bit. 

 

I am sorry if you felt my sidetrack into FERPA was distracting. The reason I posted that was because 1) I did not think your analogy/metaphor was valid/related to the issue in the topic at hand (i.e. a TA telling his/her student that they are failing is not connected at all to a stranger telling another stranger that their psychological issues are their fault, for the reasons I put above) and 2) I responded directly to your analogy/metaphor instead of what you are trying to connect it to because I thought it was relevant in relation to the larger theme discussed (i.e. are we "coddling" people too much in this world, which is what you just said here). 

 

I also think that your example "choices" for a TA is extremely unprofessional behavior for a TA and although I could have just said that instead of the whole FERPA thing, I wanted to provide justification for my opinion, instead of just saying "I think this is bad!" 

 

But since it has been brought up again now, and you mention that you don't buy the ethical argument that you can't announce grades properly, I think it's worth addressing. But since I don't think we should derail this thread further, I've made a new one for the Teaching forum, here: 

[Varangian]

This thread was terribly disappointing. I started reading it believing that at least, the majority of the scholarly soon-to-be academics here would be able to have an intelligent discussion on issues like campus disability services and discussion on health/disabilities, (I mean there are how many threads on people gaining weight on this forum and how to stay fit?) and what do I find? The last bastion  of safe discrimination and the Megatron of concern trolling.

 

Fat people know they're fat, ok? They don't need the constant reminders from people. How many individuals do you think say *per day* to your average overweight or obese person "Well, if you just eat healthy foods, exercise and consume less calories than you use, you can be thinner!" Why thank you, concern troll, I had no idea and this is the very first time someone has ever suggested such a thing before. You are my hero. And seeing as how most concern trolls are not doctors nor have they ever studied the intricacies of the human body, nutrition, kinesiology, or genetics, or even economics but rather would secretly (or not so secretly) just like to not look at fat people ever, the majority of people who hear this on a regular basis would like to take all that fake concern and offer you a nice big helping of STFU. 

 

I know this may come as a big shocker to some people, but is actually possible for some people, appearance wise, to be externally fat but internally (according to all physical examinations and tests by doctors) to be as fit and functional as a healthy person. The opposite can also be true for thin people. There are plenty of naturally thin people who consume nothing but junk and are not internally healthy. 

 

Some individuals here seem to be under the impression that accepting fat people/the fat acceptance movement/plus size phenomenon or whatever you want to call it is PC or coddling or some form of accepting "bad" behavior. Because of course anyone who is fat is absolutely to blame for all of it. Lets just throw a white sheet over everyone and call it a day. Just like Fox News says anyone who is living in poverty is there as a result of their own poor behavior or bad choices. I think I can see what kind of environment some of these individuals were raised in.  The fat acceptance movement is none of these things. Hold on for a second now because I might just make a radical claim here:

 

Like Feminism is the general belief and movement that women are fundamentally people and deserving of the equal rights and opportunities of men, the Fat Acceptance Movement is so too the general belief that fat individuals are fundamentally people and deserving of the equal rights and opportunities of anyone else. It is the belief that a fat person should not have to be okay with discrimination in the job market, bullying, harassment, or threats. Here are a few screen shots from a tumblr I occasionally peruse from people who actually do deal with discrimination, misdiagnoses and harassment just for being fat :

 

 

These were all recent posts. The fact of the matter is, yes, health is important. But you know what else is important? The fact that fat people are still PEOPLE. And they deserve just as much respect as anyone else. 

 

There is also a big correlation between poverty and health. There are areas of our country where people are so fundamentally disadvantaged that finding healthy food is one of their lowest priorities. There are places in America called food deserts. A food desert is defined as an area without access to fresh fruits, vegetables, and other whole foods due to a lack of supermarkets, farmers markets and other healthy food providers. Many individuals in these areas may not have cars with which to drive to an area where such things are accessible or may not be able to afford the gas. http://americannutritionassociation.org/newsletter/usda-defines-food-deserts <- what is a food desert. http://newsone.com/1540235/americas-worst-9-urban-food-deserts/ <- Top 9 urban food deserts. So that covers food. What about exercise? Not only are there people so economically disadvantaged that they can't get to good supermarkets, who of these people do you think are going to get to a gym? Go outside and run, you say? In temperatures that can get below freezing, you say? Or how about above 85 and humid? Above 95? It is it okay to exercise outside in adverse weather conditions? What about in unsafe neighborhoods? Who honestly thinks that anyone who can't even afford gas money is going to be living in super safe neighborhood? I won't even bother addressing the low wage workers who work 10 or 12+ hour days and can't access basic things like clean water and healthy supermarkets (in America!). 

 

For a forum all about higher education, this thread was sorely lacking it. 

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=mILfIjh356sC&lpg=PA201&ots=0T_5klWQvd&dq=food%20deserts%20in%20america&lr&pg=PA201#v=onepage&q=food%20deserts%20in%20america&f=false  <- more on food deserts

 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1549-0831.2009.tb00387.x/abstract;jsessionid=14E99F2ED815CBE471D72D7A2CC1CB01.f03t03?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false   <- article on the lack on available healthy food correlates to increased BMI