On My Freaking Soapbox!
Ok, I ran across this at IDLYITW.
I don’t watch American Idol. I have in the past, but honestly the shows where they are weeding out contestants bother me. A lot. Suffice it to say, I haven’t been following this year’s group.
Apparently MeMe Roth of National Action Against Obesity says Jordin is too fat to be the American Idol. I checked out this website, being kind of sensitive to fatty comments.
For the record, I don’t think the cute, young AI is fat. Or overweight. Or “thick”, or “chunky” or any other adjectives.
I don’t disagree with everything MeMe is saying. I think she does have some good points, about proper nutrition, feeding kids real food instead of junk food. Jonathan and I had already decided to do some of this with our own children. Some of it makes sense.
But nowhere on her site does it say what MeMe’s qualifications are to be telling us about obesity. She doesn’t appear to have any medical training, or nutritional, or any at all. But as there’s no information about who the group is on the website, I’m just guessing here. There are pretty links to her appearances on TV, though.
Picking on fat people is “sanctioned” discrimination. People get away with it, because “health issues.” No. You just can’t discriminate against minorities, gays, women, etc. anymore without some advocacy group shouting in the media. But fat people don’t have an advocate. So it kind of pisses me off when I see women like MeMe Roth, who probably never had a weight problem in her life and therefore doesn’t understand, picking on a cute little teenager.
Note to skinny people: fat people know we are fat, and that we have higher health risks. We don’t need anyone else to point it out to us.
UPDATE: 6:32 PM
Here’s a “bio” I found for MeMe Roth at her blog site.
About MeMe Roth
MeMe Roth, president and founder of National Action Against Obesity, is host and organizer of the Wedding Gown Challenge, where women enter into marriage at a healthy weight and maintain it for a lifetime. As an anti-obesity advocate, Ms. Roth’s efforts to eliminate junk food from schools, eradicate Secondhand Obesityâ„¢ (obesity handed down from one generation to the next, as well as from citizen to citizen), and to celebrate women committed to remaining fit have been featured on FOXNews’ The O’Reilly Factor w/ Bill O’Reilly, Your World with Neil Cavuto, CBS’s The Early Show, The New York Times, New York Magazine, The New York Post, Playboy Magazine, The New Jersey Star-Ledger, TimeOut New York, Big Apple Parent, WABCRadio, 106.7 LiteFM, Q104.3, Parents Magazine, Vicinity Magazine, Suburban Essex Magazine, School Administrator, American School Board Journal, The Winnipeg Sun, UPN Channel 9 News, News Target, Baristanet.com, The Item, WCRN Boston, BigFatBlog, Nippon TV, The Associated Press and Health Magazine. Ms. Roth’s agenda: “Let’s finally recognize obesity as abuse—abuse of our children, abuse of ourselves—and together take action against it.â€
I still find it highly suspicious that there is not a word about her education and training. What gives her the credentials to be an expert on obesity? It seems to me that her only qualifications are that she sends out copious press releases. I love the fact that there is NO personal information about her available on the web. A search of my full name would disclose at least where I attended college. Nothing on Mrs. Roth.
6 Responses to “On My Freaking Soapbox!”
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I challenge the notion that Mrs. MeMe Roth needs to have credentials in order to have a valid public opinion on a subject. I’m not defending her because I think she is a bit of a nut, but I don’t think she needs to be a doctor, nurse, or nutritionalist to talk about rational eating behaviors. Do you need to be a nutritionist in order to eat the right way? Of course not. Do you need to be a nutritionist to teach your children to eat well? No. So why can’t she be an advocate for this idea? Would I have to lose a child to a drunk driver in order to be a viable chapter president with Mother’s Against Drunk Drivers? Can’t I be passionate about that and an advocate without having lost a child?
Mrs. Roth’s stand is too far and is somewhat unsupportable. First, saying Jordin Sparks from American Idol is too fat to be an Idol is ridiculous. Nobody is perfect. They might look perfect, but that doesn’t make them perfect. Treating our bodies with respect is very important, but so are lots of other things, like treating each other with respect. Mrs. Roth fails at that miserably. The unsupportable part of her argument comes from the fact that weight and health are linked but not as strongly as she portends. Far more important to health is genetic background. Of course, your lifestyle impacts your health, but cigarette smoking does not guarentee lung cancer just like being overweight does not guarentee diabetes and heart disease. Your genetic background is what determines your risks. You can influence your risk levels with behavior but only in a limited way. Lifestyle is only an influencer not a decider of health factors in one’s life.
I am not arguing against her basic premise though. Clearly human beings across the globe show a remarkable lack of self-control. Eating is just one manisfestation of it. There are thousands of ways that we fail to control our selfish and self-destructive inclinations each and every day, whether it be eating a candy bar, not doing the dishes, yelling at our kids, or sitting in front of the TV or computer for extended periods of time. We live to please our base desires, and that is the issue. Mrs. Roth is no different. Her approach to reaching her goal of getting people to behave better is not loving or respectful of others. It is not acceptable to denegrate others in the pursuit of her own personal goals no matter how sensical those goals may be.
Kathy,
Good points. I don’t disagree with you about being passionate to be an advocate. I just wish her advocacy group seemed to do more than just issue press releases.
I don’t disagree with her, either. Much of what she says is common sense, and I agree with that. And I have a personal struggle with weight, so I know whereof I speak.
I’ve never had high blood pressure, or diabetes, or any other weight-related health problems. I’m sure it was only a matter of time, which is why I decided on surgery. But nothing was ever diagnosed that indicated I was pre-diabetic or hypertensive.
I wanted to make a change before I got pregnant, so that our child might escape some of the issues I’ve had because of my weight.
I’d take that bio with a grain of salt.
Two references she mentions are BigFatBlog and Baristanet.com. Notice that they’re not exactly glowing endoresments.
Where someone can be an advocate for health, which I fully support (ie: eat well, educate, promote good eating and active lifestyle to your children, etc.) I think you need to approahc it from an awareness / education standpoint and not accuse and condemn. Meme’s statements about Jordin were something like she was looking to a future with diabetes and haeart disease. She is not qualified to make statements like that – her education according to her website consists of a Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in English. So while you don’t have to be a nutritionist to eat well you also can’t perform surgery because you read the first edition of Gray’s Anatomy.
Meme’s goals may be rooted somewhere in good intentions, but her approach is, at best, confrontational and full of accusations…
Her official bio is a joke. Here is what I have found. (I think she just started this organization to try to make some money while she is home with her kids.)
Meredith Ann Clements graduated from Univ of GA in 1991 with an ABJ in Journalism and Mass Communication.
The Washington Times
April 24, 1996
Philips Media Systems named Meredith A. Clements director of public relations for North American initiatives supporting the company’s compact disc interactive system. She will work in Philips’ Washington headquarters.
The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution
December 1, 2000
Idapta, which occupied 20,000 square feet at the Biltmore, subleased 67,000 square feet from AT&T at Promenade II, said Meredith Roth, director of corporate communications. Idapta expects to lease another floor in the building next year.
MeMe Roth is the founder and president of National Action Against Obesity. Ms. Roth, a mother of two, decided on her wedding day that she would never get fat, despite a family disposition to obesity.
To Kathy Carlson on May 25, 2007 1:23 pm (the 1st post on this thread?), I hope I don’t come off as being rude or mean, but I find myself in PROFOUND disagreement with the reasons you gave to partially agree with Meme Roth. I for one do NOT believe that being “selfish” or “having a lack of self-control” are bad things at all, so long as the rights of all other human beings are respected. To the contrary, I believe that misguided action AGAINST these two natural human qualities are the source of many of the WORST problems, today and throughout all of history. You spoke as if the only problem with Meme Roth is that she doesn’t love and care for others enough—and use THAT as an example of her selfishness/lack of self-discipline—I wonder, is that the ONLY reason you love and care for others, “because you’re supposed to”? It sounds to me like you live a very regimented and self-denying lifestyle and think it is the “one and only” right-way for everyone. Self-denial, self-loathing, and lying to one’s self are the source of all evil, which are things we impose on others or demand others to do.