There IS a scientific reason for it! It’s called “starvation syndrome,” which is a constellation of psychological and physical changes that result from consuming less energy than your body needs to thrive.
The syndrome was first described by researchers during the Second World War who studied a group of men who ate a reduced-calorie diet of just 1,600 calorie/day for three months. The researchers wanted to document the effects of starvation due to wartime interruptions in food supplies, and this amount of calories was deemed similar to what many war refugees were eating at the time (a fact that is quite disturbing when you consider that most weight-loss diets direct people to voluntarily consume this same small amount of food).
Researchers carefully documented the outcomes of this restrictive eating and this is what they found [all quotes from Junkfood Science]:
As the men lost weight, their physical endurance dropped by half, their strength about 10%, and their reflexes became sluggish… The men’s resting metabolic rates declined by 40%, their heart volume shrank about 20%, their pulses slowed and their body temperatures dropped. They complained of feeling cold, tired and hungry; having trouble concentrating; of impaired judgment and comprehension; dizzy spells; visual disturbances; ringing in their ears; tingling and numbing of their extremities; stomach aches, body aches and headaches; trouble sleeping; hair thinning; and their skin growing dry and thin. Their sexual function and testes size were reduced and they lost all interest in sex. They had every physical indication of accelerated aging.
The psychological changes were just as disturbing, and included nervousness, anxiety, depression, loss of interest in hobbies, and social withdrawal. Most relevant to your Ask, the men’s relationship with food also changed dramatically:
…they became obsessed with food, thinking, talking and reading about it constantly; developed weird eating rituals; began hoarding things; consumed vast amounts of coffee and tea; and chewed gum incessantly (as many as 40 packages a day). Binge eating episodes also became a problem as some of the men were unable to continue to restrict their eating in their hunger.
I am sure this will all sound very familiar to anyone who has dieted to lose weight or suffered from food insecurity or suffered from an eating disorder! The body needs energy to survive and to thrive, and if it doesn’t get it, you are going to “hear” about it.
It was called the Minnesota Starvation Experiment and I first read about it in the book Rethinking Thin by Gina Kolata.
I really think that whenever this study is talked about, it should be mandatory to mention that, under the psychological effects of extreme food deprivation, one of the subjects cut off three of his fingers with an axe and could not remember why he did it.
So like.
These are the numbers that fat people are supposed to pursue when dieting. And what we are supposed to eat to maintain it.
But it was enough to cause severe psychological harm to grown men in tip-top physical and psychological condition who KNEW the experiment WOULD end in a matter of weeks and who were taking part in the study for a very good, humanitarian reason.
We do NOT need to do that to our bodies to meet someone else’s assessment of our appearance or our health.
It is NOT healthy. It is NOT right for people to demand this of us. It is DESTRUCTIVE, it is WRONG.
For the Anon, yeah, it’s a psychological thing that’s there to try to protect you.
I’m sorry about the lack of food benefits in this hateful hellhole of a country. You shouldn’t be having to live with this.
i want copies of the minnesota experiment docs to pin to every fashion mag proclaiming BEST DIET EVER LOSE X AMOUNT NOW i see
Yeesh. Who the hell is recommending 1600 calories a day for a diet?
“Who the hell is recommending 1600 calories a day for a diet?”
Lot’s of people, unfortunately.
Oprah Winfrey’s website recommends that people consume 1300–1500 calories per day to lose weight, as do public health organizations like the American Heart Association. Popular weight loss programs like Nutrisystem and Jenny Craig restrict people to just 1200 to 1500 calories per day. Weight watchers restricts people to 1200 to 1600 depending on their weight.
Note that all of these recommendations fall far far far below the amounts recommended by Health Canada to maintain an active and vigorous lifestyle.
And remember, such guidelines are commonly underestimates to begin with (because health organizations fear that people will “overeat” if they are given truly accurate guidelines). Moreover, such guidelines are based on a “normal” BMI of 25, and fat people have higher metabolisms than thinner people, and thus may need to consume more energy than the recommended amount to feel energetic.
In fact, most people require between 2500 and 3500 calories per day to thrive and maintain health.
I would just like to point out that due to many factors of my upbringing (sadly including bouts of disordered eating that I’m still struggling through), I saw 1600 calories and went, “that’s…that is a lot of food.”
And then a little voice in my head went, “NO. THAT IS WRONG FOR ME.”
That is how much “weight loss culture” and “ideal body image” gets shoved into women’s faces, ok? We get bombarded with heavily-edited photos of what we “should” look like, and we’re basically taught to fear the numbers!!1 to the point where four digits cause us to panic and worry.
I fucking hate this shit.
Tag: important
when u dont like ur art take a deep breath and remember u created it from nothing, like a god
via [x]
[Brooke Winters tweeted: “As a disabled person I don’t want to be told I can do anything if I put my mind to it. I want to know that what I can do is good enough.”]
I really needed to hear this. I just had someone say “don’t let your disability hold you back from doing somethings”. That’s not how it works. That’s not how it ever has worked.
I just want to take everyone who has ever said something like this, grab their shoulders, stare directly into their eyes for an uncomfortable length of time, and ask them in a low voice if they know what “disability” means.
“listen… harry’s in trouble, and we could tell mum and dad, but I reckon we should just steal the flying car and go kidnap him in his muggle neighborhood, even though I’m 12 and you’re both 14 and this is a crime and the three of us cant drive”
“excellent”
This is bullshit.
Nobody in Harry’s life – no ADULT – ever did anything about the abuse he suffered at the hands of the Dursleys. Nobody did anything when they were told he was being starved, that there were bars on the windows, that they. Albus Fucking Dumbledore didn’t do anything about it.
Nobody in canon, or JKR herself in interviews or on Pottermore, even uses the word “abuse”. It’s all about how “the Durlseys treated him badly”. Nobody says abuse.
What Ron, Fred, and George did was nothing short of heroic. That they needed to do it is an indictment of every adult in Harry’s life, magical and non-magical alike.
@deadcatwithaflamethrower Need some back-up here because I’m hitting that point of “I want to set something on fire.”
I thought you did a pretty good job, actually. Even when adults are told about the conditions Harry was found in (literally IMPRISONED: remember, folks, the Dursleys were not going to let him go back to Hogwarts in book 2) nobody does anything. Nobody acts on the fact that a family literally imprisoned a child.
Someone I used to follow on LJ/DW was literally imprisoned by their parent. Nobody ever did anything. No one would believe them when they told other adults. No one wanted to believe it.
This shit happens and adults do nothing because it might interfere with their worldview that everything is just fuckin’ peachy…or someone in *power* that they respect/fear has told them not to interfere for the good of some cause/reason or another. That is one of the most terrifyingly realistic aspects of JKR’s books, but it’s glossed over by everyone who doesn’t believe that could ever possibly happen in real life.
And hey: there is more than one way to imprison someone.
(Aside from the fact that my mother locked the door and literally stood in front of it in an attempt to keep me from leaving the house once. Afterwards she pretended it had never happened.)
JK is actually on record (a radio interview, I think, but don’t quote me) as saying she doesn’t think the way Harry was treated by the Dursley’s was abuse.
That was the moment I lost all respect for her.
I do not care that she donated millions to charity, I care that she clearly thinks starvation and swinging a frying pan at a child’s head is an okay thing to do. That it’s okay to put bars on a child’s window to keep them in, and bolts the door shut.
@jabberwockypie Now I feel like setting something on fire too. *passes the chocolate and marshmallows*
Just … *SCREAMING* So. Much. Screaming and FIRE.
See, when I learn things like this, I also become somewhat Concerned about the person’s children. (Jude Watson has a daughter and considering the Jedi Apprentice stuff, I’m ALSO worried there.)
Do I think JKR would lock her kids in their rooms with bars on the window? Probably not, but if you’re not willing to admit that withholding food and is abuse, if you’re not willing to address emotional abuse and gaslighting AT ALL, trying to make a child hate themselves (like with what the Dursleys do with magic). I’m extremely concerned about what you think appropriate parenting looks like.
Frankly I also think it’s extremely irresponsible when your intended audience consists of children and teenagers. At some point somebody needs to say “This thing that happened to this character was wrong”. Because children who are being abused? we don’t KNOW. Or we don’t necessarily process it that way. It’s “not that bad” or it’s “It’s not like they’re beating me.” and every time it gets worse (the time my mother gave me a black eye), you move the goalposts of Not That Bad “It’s not like it’s ALL THE TIME”.
I’m sure this has been posted elsewhere, but I feel it bears repeating.
Extremism is not a function of mental illness.
Someone who is mentally ill in any manner is not more likely to be an extremist. They’re not more likely to be a dangerous extremist. They’re not more vulnerable to the ideologies; they’re not in any way special.
Someone being mentally ill and an extremist, are two completely unrelated facts.
Their mental illness may interact with the extremism, in the same way mental illness interacts with every facet of someone’s life.
Most extremists are average people in a socially vulnerable position that extremist ideologues can exploit.
People who feel disenfranchised (legitimately or not.) People who are socially isolated. People who are scared, or angry, or feel cheated.
This isn’t mental illness: this is a social problem.
This is exactly what happens every time social change comes to a head.
It becomes violent when someone feeling threatened by the changes decides it’s time to put the social change back the way it “should be.” It becomes violent because these people are told by their extremist social group that the world is getting out of line because they haven’t stopped it.
And the way they’re told to stop it is violence, and that violence is their right.
This isn’t a broken chemical signal in the brain. There isn’t some miraculous stop-catch we have as a species against violence. We are all capable of violence if we can justify it, and justifying it is a function of social norms.
What’s lacking in violent extremists is the social norms against violence have been thrown out, and blamed for the loss of everything they’re told they deserve by their extremist social group.
This is not mental illness, and blaming it on mental illness is blaming a social minority for a problem that has nothing to do with them and it needs to fucking stop.
when guys are like “girls over [relatively low weight] shouldn’t wear [revealing article of clothing]” a lot of the time they are trying to get women above that weight to say “OH REALLY?” and post a picture of themselves looking good in that article of clothing. It’s a creepy power play designed to prey on both women’s confidence and their insecurities and trick them into posting revealing pictures of themselves for the sexual gratification of men who they otherwise wouldn’t have given the time of day. It’s a sleazy pick-up artist tactic. It’s negging. When you see an all-too-common post that’s like “bigger girls shouldn’t wear bikinis” and the response is him getting “owned” because a woman replied with pictures of herself looking beautiful, he’s not getting owned at all, he’s getting exactly the result he was hoping for. They’re basically saying “You sure showed me by sending me, a huge sexist creep, a picture of yourself in a bikini! PLEASE don’t send me nudes, I don’t know if I could take the humiliation!”
The scary thing is that I’ve had a guy admit this to me. He said something about “fat girls always have ugly tits”. I am fat and a girl. I said “no, they don’t.” He said “prove it”. When I made it clear that a) I had nothing to prove, b) why the fuck am I gonna care about some beanpole-in-a-meme-shirt’s opinion?, and c) I wasn’t EVER gonna send him shit, he went crazy. Straight up admitted that the technique always worked blah blah, I must have been a dude pretending to be a girl blah blah, and basically had a temper tantrum till I blocked him.
So 100% guys that do this are garbage and even if they’re not, remember that you don’t have to prove anything to anyone.
“YOU DON’T HAVE TO PROVE ANYTHING TO ANYONE” ^^^^^^^
A lot of the advice I got about learning to enforce my boundaries was framed as an adversarial thing. Like, ‘yes, it might upset and disappoint the people around you, but you have to learn to tell them ‘no’ anyway.’ At best, ‘good people will still like you if you enforce your boundaries’.
What I wish I’d been told is that good people will think it’s awesome that you enforce your boundaries, that there are people who will respect the hell out of you for it, that there are people who will admire you not despite you telling them no, but because of it. That most people don’t want to make you do something you don’t enjoy,and so they’ll actively be happier and more relaxed around you if they know they can trust you to decline to do things you don’t enjoy and to ask them to stop things that bother you.
It helped me a lot, personally, to stop thinking of ‘enforcing my boundaries’ as something I did for me and more as something I did to empower the people I was close with, to build a situation where they and I felt sure everything that was going on was something we all wanted.
Most advice isn’t good for everyone and this advice seems maybe bad for people in abusive situations, because sometimes you do need to learn to enforce boundaries against people who will try to violate them. But if there are other brains like me out there: your partner will be really happy you can say no to them. your friend will be really happy you change the subject when you hate it. your roommate will really appreciate that you tell them to turn down the music. most people will feel safer and more comfortable around you if they know you’ll reliably express your needs, AND they’ll feel better about voicing theirs.
Tru fax.
I had a friend tell me that they really admired me for going “hey, I love you guys, but I need to go sit in a room by myself and read for an hour”. So yes, don’t be afraid of setting your boundaries!
And for people like me, who are very very VERY bad with things like unspoken clues to the fact that someone wants me to do/not do something or whatever? It is such a relief not to have to be constantly worried that I’ll do something that will make them not want to hang out with me anymore.
I’ve lost friends because they never tried to enforce their boundaries and as a result I had no idea I was trampling right over them until they got to a point where they couldn’t handle it anymore, and it is an AWFUL SHITTY FEELING knowing you’ve done that to someone.
Please please please enforce your boundaries with me. I promise I will love you for it.
This is so, so, SO important, people.
I am both bad at enforcing my boundaries and constantly scared of stomping over other peoples. It makes me feel safer if I know you can say No to me.
I don’t know why it never occurred to me that others would feel safer if they knew I could say No as well.
I reblog this every time I see it, because it’s one of life’s hardest lessons.
I needed this today.
I’ve always thought that part of the problem was calling it “birth control.” That means that the immediate comparison that people make is that oh, these are like condoms for girls (never mind that’s female condoms are a thing). And what’s do condoms do? They keep sperm away from eggs and prevent pregnancy. Full stop. (Yes, they also help prevent the spread of STIs, but that’s more of a side benefit and people have been using condoms for far longer than they’ve had that benefit.)
I was the pill for a year to help deal with a hormone imbalance caused by PCOS. My wife was on the pill for a while because she had really bad anemia and needed to not bleed for a while. Friend of a friend was on the pill because she was literally immobilized by pain during her period.
There are so many reasons people are prescribed birth control, and controlling birth is the only one that is generally known. This is a mistake,
I really don’t think people who aren’t Autistic or who don’t struggle with sensory issues understand that when it comes to certain stimuli, those things provoke actual feelings of pain, nausea, disgust, discomfort, etc for people that are Autistic/have sensory processing disorder.
Take “picky eating.” I was labelled a “picky eater” even as a little toddler. I couldn’t eat sauce, tomatoes, or have my food touching other foods. People said stuff like “She’ll grow out of it” or “She’ll eat it if she’s actually hungry” or “Tastebuds change; she’ll like it when she’s older!“
But the fact was, if it was a food I couldn’t eat, I literally couldn’t eat it. I’d try to eat lasagna and start crying, and gagging, and I’d have to spit it out. Guess what? I didn’t “eat when I was hungry” if it was one of those foods, I just didn’t eat. This was especially an issue when I started going to school and daycare (I eventually got a note from my doctors that detailed my Autism diagnosis and sensory problems, so that the local kids center would provide me with alternative meals. They treated it the same way they did with kids with allergies, basically.)
Also, I didn’t “grow out of it.” I still cannot eat tomatos, sauces, and most mixed food dishes. Because I just can’t even make my mouth chew and swallow without gagging and spitting the food out. Just a couple months ago I went to grab some chicken wraps from the local taco place, and I asked specifically that they hold the sauce. But they didn’t, so when I took a bite I got a mouthful of pain and chucked it right into my napkin (gross, I know. I’m making a point here though.)
So when Autistic people, or anyone with a sensory processing related disorder, tells you that they cannot handle something-whether that means being touched, wearing certain clothes, being around noise, or eating certain foods-remember what I just said. That’s how it feels, when people willfully ignore our reminders and warnings about our stimuli and triggers. That’s what you’re doing when you touch someone when they tell you it hurts them, or make them wear that suit or outfit, or put sauce on their food when they politely ask you not to. Granted, overload is different and presents differently in everyone, but bottom line-you’re choosing to disrespect someone’s boundaries, and their medical issues, and you are hurting them when you force certain stimuli on them after they’ve asked you to stop. Just respect people, and don’t shame people for not being able to handle or do the same stuff other people can.
I was told my entire life that I’d “grow out of it” or people tried to guilt me. “We’re lucky to have this food,” “I’m not making you a special meal,” etc etc etc (mind you, this wasn’t always my parents, my dad and I had a stand off over lettuce on my taco when I was 7, I didn’t speak to him a week, and he tended to try and accommodate me from then on).
And this post is exactly correct. If I took a bite of the wrong texture, I would get nauseated. If I forced myself to eat something I knew I couldn’t, for whatever reason – usually there were no other alternatives – I’d get sick. I’ve thrown up because of this. I didn’t make myself, that’s just how strong a physical reaction we can have.
I’ve cried before because it hurt and disgusted me to eat what I was eating.
You know what else I’ve been told? “Just pick it off” if it was something like mushrooms/peppers/etc on pizza (you can’t pick it off, it permeates into the food, I can taste it in every bite and I just can’t), “so-and-so is also picky” (like it makes them an expert on how I need to eat), or the all time winner, “just try it” (chances are I have tried it and/or have a very good reason to believe I can’t eat it, such as it contains something I can’t eat).
So don’t shame people who are “picky” eaters, there’s a good chance they have reason for it.
And my fellow picky eaters, have a plan in place from group eating events. I learned young that I needed to make accommodations for myself because other people wouldn’t. Lunches at church where they served BBQ were previously spent sitting there eating nothing – then I figured out I could get a hamburger bun or two and butter them. Bread and butter is something I can always eat. Find things you can always eat. Possibly multiple things. If you’re planning to attend a group gathering, ask them what food is being served. Ask if you can bring something. It’s a lot more common now to do that with celiacs and food allergies so prevalent.
In the past when I was out at school most of the time, I’d carry granola bars with me. Find something like that for yourself. Now I have a snack box of oyster crackers in my purse.
There's a Mirror on the Wall 