Friday Things // 03.26.2021

The one waiting for a doughnut.

Hello, hello!

This week has been something of a blur for me. If you read my (late) Wednesday post, you know I got the Covid vaccine (YAY!), which I am feeling very fortunate for, and it knocked me out this week. (Really all the way through last night.) To be clear, I am not complaining — it’s the privilege and opportunity of a lifetime to have an effective vaccine in my body while still in the middle of a relentless pandemic, and I am grateful — but just setting the scene for my head space while writing this.

At the beginning of the week, I started seeing people posting across social media about a promotion (read: marketing campaign) Krispy Kreme is running, offering a free doughnut to anyone vaccinated against Covid who can show proof via their CDC vaccination card. And much of the commentary was negative. Like, really negative. I made the mistake of sitting down to read the comments on Krispy Kreme’s Instagram post announcing said campaign, and let me tell you — they were wild. People who comment on social media (to strangers, or brands, particularly just to rant) are wild. (I know this is a gross generalization, but bear with me here.) The majority of the reactions I read on this post from a doughnut shop using doughnuts as a reward or incentive (however you want to frame it) were sort of comical — people were a mix of aghast and angry and disappointed. Right away, I felt like a human version of my dog when she hears something unsettling and her ears shoot straight up. I mean………. this is a doughnut shop. You know they make and sell doughnuts, yes? Of course they’re going to use what they have —whatever they’re known for —in any campaign they create. And personally, I thought it was great they (or any brands) are trying to think of ways to encourage people to go get the vaccine, because — reality check — we need more people to get it if we want to see our way out of this pandemic… and if it's a doughnut that gets someone there, fantastic! 

Now if we strip away the marketing layer here, and the concerns people expressed over “corporate greed” (I saw comments along those lines) disguised as corporate social responsibility, what we’re left with is upset over the doughnuts of it all. So, really, we’re left with fat phobia, and a whole lot of diet culture rhetoric. 

This is a topic that I feel very strongly about, and that I have tried to learn as much as possible about in the last few years. Before I jump in even further, allow me to remind you that I’m not a healthcare professional, or a registered dietitian, a nurse, or a certified-anything that should be giving you any type of medical or health advice. 💁 What I am, though, is a writer/editor and communications professional who has spent about half her career working in the health space as a communicator. More importantly, I’m a human being who’s experienced diet culture firsthand, up close and personal. Everything I’m sharing here is my opinion, that I’ve learned through my own experience.

Okay! The doughnuts. I read comments about how they are a one-way ticket to obesity, and obesity leads to diabetes and/or more severe Covid-19. Worries over people going for a doughnut a day, and sugar “weakening” or damaging your health. 👀And that was just me skimming the more than 13,000 comments.

Here’s why this gets under my skin: a doughnut is not evil. Sugar is not the devil. You can’t trade in good health quite so easily; just because you ate something with a higher fat/calorie/sugar content doesn’t meant damage has been done (and conversely, avoiding fats, high calories and/or sugar doesn’t make you healthy). Food is meant to be enjoyed! To celebrate life! (Hell, we all need some celebrating right now, don’t you think?) What is problematic and dangerous, in my opinion, is how conditioned our society is to automatically think that there are “good” and “bad” foods, and that if a company isn’t offering you a green juice or some carrot sticks with hummus, then you’re on some {non-existent} slippery slope to becoming overweight and fraught with health issues. Certain foods are not the problem. The numbers on our scales or inside our pants are not the problem. The problem is in a culture that applauds weight loss, and glamorizes shrinking, and makes a villain of certain sizes or body shapes. 

Last week, I had my annual physical. During the appointment, while the medical assistant was taking my vitals and prepping for the doctor to come in, a tape measure appeared. The medical assistant told me to take off my sweatshirt so that she could literally measure my waist. I was so caught off guard that I went along with it, holding the measuring tape a my bellybutton like she ordered. When she was done, I asked her why that was necessary, considering I was coming in for a physical, not a weight assessment or personal training session. I was at my doctor’s office, not a gym. She told me didn’t know, and that she just does what she’s told. Alrighty. I didn’t push it, but it left me so uncomfortable. Not a lot of people know this — including that doctor I was about to see — but I used to struggle with orthorexia, aided and abetted by obsessive exercising. In other words, disordered eating and exercising far more than I should have and than my body wanted me to, but because I was trying out-exercise any “extra” calories. This is a much longer story that I will spare you with, but long story short, recognizing how pervasive and real diet culture is (and finding intuitive eating and non-diet registered dietitians) about six years ago absolutely changed my life. And that measuring tape? Brought back memories I didn’t need to relive, all for a completely unnecessary reason. 

BMI — which is what I assume was the end goal of doing that measurement — is not an accurate or holistic picture of someone’s health, just like numbers on a scale aren’t either. And there has not been concrete evidence that weight or BMI play a factor in someone’s outcome if they get infected with coronavirus. 

Diet culture is everywhere.

(And seriously, what year is this, that someone’s interested in measuring my waist for the sake of “health,” for goodness sake? 1960?)

When I was at my very tiniest, weight wise, I was having the absolute unhealthiest thoughts about my body image and food. Even now, it would be easy, based on external appearance alone, to make the case that I seem like the picture of good health (and mind you, I’m a petite person with the privilege of being in a small body), but in reality, on paper, if you were to glance at my medical records, I read as less healthy than probably most people reading this ol’ post; you’d see words like "morbidity” and a whole lot of labs marked “high” or “abnormal” because of a pre-existing condition I was born with, all of which is 100% unrelated to my weight or size.

I’ll step back off my soap box for the moment, but let me tell you something has helped me rest easier: your weight does not define you, and it doesn’t say much of anything about you… including if you’re healthy or not. I know the extra loud voices out there make it hard to believe that, but it’s the truth. You matter, oh so much, and your worth doesn’t shift an ounce based on whether or not you ate that doughnut or not. It doesn’t change if you weigh more or less now than you did last week, or last year, or five years ago. 

And……..soon as I’m “fully” vaccinated (aka two weeks after the second dose I just received), you know I’m going to get myself a free doughnut. 😎 Thanks for reading, friends.

Sending you all the YAYs,

Joelle