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Is fatness a risk factor for severe illness or death from COVID-19?

Media and even some health agencies are warning that fatness is a risk factor for severe illness or death from COVID-19. That is some scary shit, especially when combined with the rampant medical discrimination that fat people already face and the threat of resource scarcity triggering “service rationing”.

However, this is not an accurate reflection of the science.

Two smaller-scale studies from China identified “obesity” as a risk-factor. Yet those results may be based on incomplete health records of patients and they have not been reproduced among larger samples in other countries.

For example, @drjoshuawolrich on Instragram summarizes the results from a larger-scale UK study like this (images are his as well):

The latest report on COVID-19 from the Intensive Care National Audit & Research Centre in the UK is pretty conclusive. There is no evidence at present to suggest that BMI is a risk factor for admission to ICU with COVID-19 (n=672). ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Looking at the data graphically (swipe left on the post) you can see that the distribution of those admitted critically ill with COVID-19 (blue bars) follows the BMI distribution of the general population (orange line). BMI is not a risk factor.

Despite these findings, in their coverage of this exact study, The Guardian claimed that “Excess weight also appears to be a significant risk factor; over 70% of patients were overweight, obese or clinically obese on the body mass index scale.”

(Of course, among the age groups represented in the study, roughly 70% of the population is overweight or obese to begin with in the UK, so it makes sense that we would also comprise a similar percentage of people hospitalized… but good to know you hate fat people)

Some health agencies are also warning people with BMIs over 40 to take extra precautions and self-isolate. Why are they doing this when fatness is not a reliable risk factor? Perhaps because many of the risk factors that have been identified by the research are associated with higher weights, including older age and comorbidities like hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Of course, lots of fat people don’t have any of these conditions, and lots of thin people do. Weight is an invalid indicator of health. Maybe these health agencies think it is more efficient to stigmatize scapegoat warn fat people generally, rather than focusing on actual health indicators, which may be confusing to the general public. (I think you all know what I think about that strategy [insert fart noises]).

So what are the reliable risk factors for severe illness and death from COVID-19? To be frank, we don’t really know yet. As a recent editorial in the BMJ states: “As yet, there are no good data on how the risks associated with underlying comorbidities might vary in different population groups or settings.”

In addition, I think we should all ask ourselves why we care about this information so much. In an ideal world, perhaps knowing the risk factors would allow us to offer the most supports to the people who (statistically) need it the most. But in reality, this kind of information is used to blame people for their own illnesses, to deny healthcare resources to people who “won’t benefit” from them, and to provide a false sense of security to those precious few who happen to have the “right” healthcare profile. Right now, at this moment, none of those things are helpful.

Breath deeply my friends. Protect one another. And tell the fat haters to fuck right off.

And if you need it: How to Survive COVID-19 Service Rationing (UK based)

thyccandtyred

I just realized I’ve never once heard that Jack Black, John Goodman, Josh Gad, John Favreau, John Candy, John Belushi, Chris Farley, or any of the other fat male celebrities are “promoting obesity.” Not once in my life. That is almost solely reserved for fat woman.

geekandmisandry

You’re right and you should say it.

moon-crater

To expand on this somewhat and add some nuance, those guys have been treated differently because they have the “fatty falls down, makes funny” exemption, which is still a form of fatphobia. (“Fatty falls down” was the term coined by Chris Farley, in fact.) To illustrate, look at what his obituary said:

“On Saturday Night Live, Mr. Farley played comically sweaty, tightly wound characters who worked themselves and their girth into a frenzy”

“Among Mr. Farley’s best-known TV characters were the flabby, bare-chested Chippendales dancer whose jiggling gut spilled over his waistband; a Chicago Bears super-fan who after downing beers and greasy bratwurst would pound on his chest in a faux heart attack; and Matt Foley, a bespectacled motivational speaker who struggled to keep his pants up and ended his speeches by smashing the furniture in a froth, his blond hair mussed.”

And Belushi’s:

“Mr. Belushi, whose bulging belly, rasping voice, wild eyes and lunatic portrayals of grunting Samurai warriors, antenna-quivering killer bees and greasy luncheonette hash-slingers made him a favorite of television audiences, was a member of NBC-TV’s ’‘Saturday Night Live” troupe from 1975 to 1979, when he left for Hollywood.“

And Candy:

“"The mere sight of the tubby Mr. Candy is funny enough,“ Ms. Maslin wrote, “but the spectacle of him playing racquetball really is something to see.” “

You don’t hear people talking about these guys “promoting obesity” because a.) that wasn’t something people said when most of them were at their height, and b.) they were talked about the way the quotes above did, instead. Their bodies were still judged negatively, written about using language meant to underscore their perceived grossness and lack of desirability, even as their willingness to use those bodies for comedy was accepted.

Fatphobia affects women differently than it does men because of sexism, and that’s a valid–and nuanced–discussion to have, but let’s not pretend that these comedians were ever immune to its effects. Fat bodies have always been considered public property, acceptable targets for judgement and derision, no matter their owners’ genders or talents, and that manifests in myriad ways.

berniesrevolution

What is Neoliberalism? Part #2 By the Funky Academic

fullpraxisnow

See “What is Neoliberalism? Part #1″ by the Funky Academic too.

thevoyagereternals

Star Trek + Social Commentary (context in the captions)

ancamnarvienn

THIS is what the original Star Trek TV series and films were about. Not just about blowing up things in space and snazzy lens flares with a side order of casual sexism -.-‘.

shittybeatnik-deactivated201905

dude do you know how many people I have pissed off by saying the exact same thing?

Not enough people.

starladyuhura

THIS IS WHAT STAR TREK IS TRULY ABOUT

beefcakemish-deactivated2021070

I love one family.

fatthings

I can’t believe Misha Collins and family are single-handedly trying to put all those laughing-with-salad clip art models out of business.

heavyweightheart

Hair removal, at its core, is a form of gendered social control.

“The campaign against body hair on women originates in Darwin’s 1871 book Descent of Man, explains Herzig. Men of science obsessed over racial differences in hair type and growth (among other aspects of physical appearance), and as the press popularized these findings, the broader American public latched on. Darwin’s evolutionary theory transformed body hair into a question of competitive selection—so much so that hairiness was deeply pathologized. “Rooted in traditions of comparative racial anatomy, evolutionary thought solidified hair’s associations with ‘primitive’ ancestry and an atavistic return to earlier, ‘less developed’ forms,” Herzig writes. Post-Descent, hairiness became an issue of fitness.

An important distinction in this evolutionary framework was that men were supposed to be hairy, and women were not. Scientists surmised that a clear distinction between the masculine and the feminine indicated “higher anthropological development” in a race. So, hairiness in women became indicative of deviance, and researchers set out to prove it. Herzig tells the story of an 1893 study of 271 cases of insanity in white women, which found that insane women had excessive facial hair more frequently than the sane. Their hairs were also “thicker and stiffer,” more closely resembling those of the “inferior races.” Havelock Ellis, the scholar of human sexuality, claimed that this type of hair growth in women was “linked to criminal violence, strong sexual instincts … [and] exceptional ‘animal vigor.’”

By the early 1900s, unwanted hair was a significant source of discomfort for American women. They desired smooth, sanitized, white skin. They wanted to be feminine. “In a remarkably short time, body hair became disgusting to middle-class American women, its removal a way to separate oneself from cruder people, lower class and immigrant,” writes Herzig.”

hexalt

“Hair removal, at its core, is a form of gendered social control. It’s not a coincidence that the pressure for women to modify their body hair has risen in tandem with their liberties, Herzig argues. She writes that the effect of this hairlessness norm is to “produce feelings of inadequacy and vulnerability, the sense that women’s bodies are problematic the way they naturally are.”

And yet, if you ask many women why they voluntarily shave or wax, they might say that it’s a method of self-enhancement. That they want to, it’s a personal choice, and they just feel better when everything is smooth. Hair removal as self-care might be one of the biggest lies women have bought into. It keeps us in an impossible loop, one in which we are constantly in pursuit of velvety limbs and the moral virtue of cleanliness.”

fatthings

Of course you feel better when you adhere to appearance norms. It IS "only natural" - as choice-based feminism loves to say - to want your society and community to view you as normal. What's likely not natural is what specifically constitutes "normal".

wahtdahel-blog

Most of the medical research was done on white males and their response to medicine. This is why medical books should only serve as a framework but clinical expertise matters more.

And this is why we need more black doctors.

determinate-negation

terfs mistaking cis jewish women for trans women bc of facial hair is so.. huh.. like that really says something doesnt it. terf ideology is on such shaky foundations in literally all aspects so its not surprising that terfs would attack cis women who dont fit their idea of womanhood & bc they think trans women all look a certain way where theyll be able to identify them but that case specifically is particularly funny/horrible. especially bc like jewish women/jewish mothers being viewed as masculine is a longstanding stereotype thats been employed by nazis and reactionaries 🤔

plaguerightsactivist

I’ve seen actual nazi “how to spot a jew” propaganda rebranded as “how to spot a trans woman” spread around by terfs and it’s fucking mortifying

fatthings

Norms about body/facial hair have been the most helpful thing for me in understanding the actual intersection of race and gender (as opposed to political alliances across these groups or similarities between oppression based on each, which often gets called "intersection").

A hundred years ago, white American women were told by Madison Avenue that hairlessness makes us beautiful, pure, and refined by setting us apart from some base, hairy other. Now common "knowledge" is that hairlessness makes us feminine, but we can't just write off that earlier, racist message. "Ideal" womanhood looks, in the collective conscious, like a white woman, and so each individual's gender is always defined in part by their race and their race always inflected by their gender.

heavyweightheart

“For both [the “ex-gay” and weight loss] ministries, health is a useful way to navigate the tension between the fact of the judgment of gay and fat people and the Christian disavowal of judgment. In the process, by incorporating so wide a range of issues and appropriating authorities ranging in scientific credibility from the highly authoritative medical doctors to the pseudoclinical authority of therapeutic culture, health becomes so malleable a category that it can encompass almost any moral concern that Christians identify. Indeed, at times health becomes so completely conflated with Christian norms that they become almost impossible to disentangle. In contrast to the category of sin, where the ministries use a subculturally meaningful category to indicate moral concern in a socially distinctive way, the category of health gives ministries the opportunity to use a much more widely accessible category while giving it a specific moral twist. Sin and health become complementary categories for conveying moral content that can be used strategically in conversations with the larger culture and in struggles over the meaning of homosexuality and body size. Each marks the issue as a problem and implicitly invokes remedy. Thus, the expansion of health to encompass sin, however limited its use for clinical purposes, becomes extremely useful for disciplinary ones.”

— Seeking the Straight and Narrow: Weight Loss and Sexual Reorientation in Evangelical America

gothhabiba

any company or advertisement that makes a gimmick out of not wearing foundation but redirects that focus into “skincare” isn’t focusing any less on standards of preternatural perfection for women but rather keeping the standards the same & giving you even fewer tools to try to attain them with

gothhabiba

‘Something similar is going on today with a certain popular beauty look, which we might label “Instagram model.” The look evokes both nakedness and airbrushing and is made possible by technology. A lot of the work formerly performed by makeup has been redirected into products and procedures—eyelash extensions, micro-current facials, injections of all kinds—leading to, and prompted by, an aesthetic of militant naturalness surrounded by an unambiguous aura of money and work. It’s a regime posing as a regimen. “Rules of taste enforce structures of power,” Sontag wrote. The beauty industry runs on its ability to redefine “natural” at increasingly higher prices.’

–Jia Tolentino, “The Year that Skin Care Became a Coping Mechanism”

mentalhealthnerd

“Of course, this is one of the profound ways in which oppression works—to mire us in body hatred. Homophobia is all about defining queer bodies as wrong, perverse, immoral. Transphobia, about defining trans bodies as unnatural, monstrous, or the product of delusion. Ableism, about defining disabled bodies as broken and tragic. Class warfare, about defining the bodies of workers as expendable. Racism, about defining the bodies of people of color as primitive, exotic, or worthless. Sexism, about defining female bodies as pliable objects. These messages sink beneath our skin.”

— Eli Clare, “Stolen Bodies, Reclaimed Bodies” (via jawncharles)

#to read

refinery29

Watch: “Flying While Fat” is the short documentary on YouTube you NEED to watch showing what plus size people go through when they travel by air

If the plane doesn’t physically accommodate your body type, flying can turn from an uncomfortable experience into a humiliating one. That’s why London-based artist Stacy Bias made the new documentary Flying While Fat: to get to the heart of just how pervasive people’s fat phobia on planes is.

Gifs: Stacy Bias

WATCH THE VIDEO

dynastylnoire

I have family members that refuse to fly because they fear the ridicule, the shame, and having to pay for an extra seat.

justdrinkyourtea

Aaaaaalll of this.

sammyisfat

My sister works for an airlines call centre, and she gets a lot of complaints from people saying they are upset they had to sit next to a fat person and they wanted to be compensated for having to do so. Not realizing they are talking to a fat person.

mariposa-nena-deactivated201911

my grandmother won’t come visit me from Egypt because she’s 350+ and has mobility issues and she’s afraid they won’t even let her on a plane and she’ll have to buy a few seats to fit on. It breaks my heart.

favoritelatina

Not to mention a lot of staff is rude as fuck to fat people.

anisetheapothecary

TUMBLR DISAGREES

mobpsycho100

pietriarchy

from now on the system is gonna skip from 68 notes straight to 70 just to be safe

mostlysignssomeportents

Tumblr bans all adult content, such as "female-presenting nipples"

Rob Beschizza:

Tumblr, the mainstream web’s last redoubt for niche smut, is going to clean house. The social blogging platform is banning all adult material on December 17.

Banned content includes photos, videos, and GIFs of human genitalia, female-presenting nipples, and any media involving sex acts, including illustrations. The exceptions include nude classical statues and political protests that feature nudity. The new guidelines exclude text, so erotica remains permitted. Illustrations and art that feature nudity are still okay — so long as sex acts aren’t depicted — and so are breast-feeding and after birth photos. “Users have a chance to appeal flagged content”

The policy change takes effect on December 17th. From then on, any explicit posts will be flagged and deleted by algorithms. For now, Tumblr is emailing users who have posted adult content flagged by algorithms and notifying that their content will soon be hidden from view. Posts with porn content will be set to private, which will prevent them from being reblogged or shared elsewhere in the Tumblr community.

Even the cold dead embrace of a Yahoo! acquision could not end Tumblr, such was the power of fandom gathered there. But Yahoo never knew what it owned in Tumblr and was indifferent to its continued existence. The management of new Yahoo owner Verizon, however, has a pulse. It knows what Tumblr is and it hates it. It will hack it down until a perfectly clean advertising- and appstore-friendly traffic center remains.

That phrase Tumblr uses, “female-presenting nipples”, is darkly comic given the context of its ultra-woke audience. They didn’t give even the slightest thought to what people other than lawyers and appstore gatekeepers might think of it. In that sense, it seems to have a knowing reactionary air about it. It’s a “go fuck yourself” so perfectly aimed at Tumblr users it’s almost impossible to believe it isn’t intentional.

https://boingboing.net/2018/12/03/tumblr-bans-all-adult-content.html

heavyweightheart

Hair removal, at its core, is a form of gendered social control.

“The campaign against body hair on women originates in Darwin’s 1871 book Descent of Man, explains Herzig. Men of science obsessed over racial differences in hair type and growth (among other aspects of physical appearance), and as the press popularized these findings, the broader American public latched on. Darwin’s evolutionary theory transformed body hair into a question of competitive selection—so much so that hairiness was deeply pathologized. “Rooted in traditions of comparative racial anatomy, evolutionary thought solidified hair’s associations with ‘primitive’ ancestry and an atavistic return to earlier, ‘less developed’ forms,” Herzig writes. Post-Descent, hairiness became an issue of fitness.

An important distinction in this evolutionary framework was that men were supposed to be hairy, and women were not. Scientists surmised that a clear distinction between the masculine and the feminine indicated “higher anthropological development” in a race. So, hairiness in women became indicative of deviance, and researchers set out to prove it. Herzig tells the story of an 1893 study of 271 cases of insanity in white women, which found that insane women had excessive facial hair more frequently than the sane. Their hairs were also “thicker and stiffer,” more closely resembling those of the “inferior races.” Havelock Ellis, the scholar of human sexuality, claimed that this type of hair growth in women was “linked to criminal violence, strong sexual instincts … [and] exceptional ‘animal vigor.’”

By the early 1900s, unwanted hair was a significant source of discomfort for American women. They desired smooth, sanitized, white skin. They wanted to be feminine. “In a remarkably short time, body hair became disgusting to middle-class American women, its removal a way to separate oneself from cruder people, lower class and immigrant,” writes Herzig.”

#101 #useful

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