Archive for February, 2010

This whole Kevin Smith vs. Southwest Airlines thing is putting fat-hate front and center on the Blogosphere. It coincides with me starting to read Shapely Prose, so fat-hate issues are front and center in my mind, and you get to hear about them.

I feel like I have a lot to say about the issue, but I am going to try to keep this post down to just one main point: the “Bunsen burner” theory of metabolism. The theory goes something like this: the body burns fuel, like a Bunsen burner. If calories in is less than calories expended through metabolism and exercise, you will lose weight. Therefore, you are fat because you eat too much.

Fat-haters use this idea to put fat people’s weight into their control, which then justifies the fat-hate, since apparently what we learned from Teh Gays is that it’s okay to be hateful to people if the thing you’re being hateful over is a choice, but not if it’s innate.

I confess to having used this argument in discussions about weight. It made terribly good sense at the time. It’s basic thermodynamics, right? If you have a fuel source with so many calories of energy, and you burn off that many calories, plus some more, the extra calories have to come from somewhere. The thermodynamics are sound, but the Bunsen burner theory of metabolism is total bullshit. The human body is not a black-box in a lab.

The first flaw in the theory is that the human body uses calories for a lot more than just maintaining weight. For example, if you restrict calories, many people’s cognitive function will suffer or energy levels decrease before they reach a point where they begin to lose weight. You can’t pick and choose. You can’t say to your body, “Dear body, please take those calories from my fat and not from my brain-function.” Imagine that, on a given day, my base metabolic rate is determined to be 2200 calories, and from that point on, I begin to consume only 2000 calories, a 200-calorie deficit. Who’s to say that I won’t be 200 calories stupider, slower, grumpier, and weaker without losing any weight?

This brings up a fundamental flaw in the very idea of the base metabolic rate, which is the basis of the Bunsen burner theory. The BMR is defined as the amount of calories you need to eat to maintain your weight, therefore if you eat less than your BMR, you must lose weight. Can you see the circularity in this definition? If you’re eating your estimated BMR and not losing weight, the doctors and scientists will say, “Your BMR must be lower than predicted.” Then they’ll restrict your calorie intake until you start to lose weight and say THAT’s your BMR.

So, calories in minus my BMR equals weight gained or lost, right? But BMR is defined as, “the amount of calories below which I will lose weight.”  So, let’s just substitute the variable in that formula, as they used to say in algebra. Calories in minus whatever number it takes to make me lose weight = lost weight. Uhhh… yes, I suppose that’s true. It’s also a tautology, and so not very interesting from a practical perspective.

Somehow, “Calories In < Calories Expended = Weight Loss,” sounds very reasonable, but it sounds pretty stupid when you translate that to, “In order to lose weight, restrict your calories until you begin to lose weight.” Thanks. Next you’ll tell me, “In order to be able to live in a vacuum, hold your breath until you no longer need to breathe.”

In closing, to the person with whom I argued in favor of the Bunsen burner theory: I was wrong. You were right. I was stupid and bigoted. I’m sorry.

On a side-note, the next time you hear somebody debating whether people are “born gay” or “choose gay-ness,” please for the love of whatever you find holy, remind them that it doesn’t matter, because who you love and fuck is nobody’s business but your own, regardless of why you’re choosing to love and fuck them. The whole “innate vs. choice” debate presumes that the only reason we shouldn’t punish a person for gay-ness is because the person had it imposed upon them, like some sort of birth defect. This is equally true for fat people.