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Fat's Real Barriers To Health
Plus: how to increase squat mobility forever
The 10almonds Team
April 23, 2024
Today’s almonds have been activated by:
Where do you spend most time? Are there plants there?
If not, put plants there. They will boost your serotonin levels and purify the air.
“But I am incapable of keeping plants alive”—in this case, put fake plants there. They won’t purify the air, but the serotonin boost works just the same, as the brain is easily tricked in this regard!
⏰ IN A RUSH?
Today’s 30-Second Summary
If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:
Fat can help or hinder health, depending on various factors
Today’s main feature looks at these ways, ranging from barriers to healthcare that are inadvertently created for fat people, to fat’s all-cause mortality-reducing qualities once one is over the age of 65
We do also touch on (healthily!) losing weight if that is a goal of yours, though
Being unable to easily participate in spoken conversations is not just an inconvenience; it’s also a [causal, fixable] risk factor for age-related cognitive decline.
Today’s sponsor, Hear.com, are offering the most cutting-edge dual-processing technology in hearing aids that isolate and separate speech from background noise, now with their latest most advanced device yet!
Read on to learn more about these things, or click here to visit our archive
🤫 A WORD TO THE WISE
 | Hard or Soft… Liquor?Dr. Vincent Ho explains why different kinds of alcohol have different (sometimes opposite!) effects on your bowels: |
👀 WATCH AND LEARN
How To Increase Squat Mobility Forever (8:14)
Mobility menu:
Want to watch it, but not right now? Bookmark it for later 🔖
YOU MAY HAVE MISSED…
Synergistic Brain-Training
Can Saturated Fats Be Healthy?
❓ MYSTERY ITEM
A Nice Pot Of…
Hint: today’s mystery item may seem obvious from its silhouette, but it is designed for one very specific use—and does not involve any liquids.
YOU MAY HAVE MISSED…
Behavioral Activation Against Depression & Anxiety
Wouldn’t It Be Nice To Have Regenerative Superpowers?
💬 MAIN FEATURE
Fat Justice In Healthcare
This is Aubrey Gordon, an author, podcaster, and fat justice activist. What does that mean?
When it comes to healthcare, we previously covered some ideas very similar to her work, such as how…
There's a lot of discrimination in healthcare settings
In this case, it often happens that a thin person goes in with a medical problem and gets treated for that, while a fat person can go in with the same medical problem and be told "you should try losing some weight".
Top tip if this happens to you... Ask: “what would you advise/prescribe to a thin person with my same symptoms?”
Other things may be more systemic, for example:
When a thin person goes to get their blood pressure taken, and that goes smoothly, while a fat person goes to get their blood pressure taken, and there’s not a blood pressure cuff to fit them, is the problem the size of the person or the size of the cuff? It all depends on perspective, in a world built around thin people.
That’s a trivial-seeming example, but the same principle has far-reaching (and harmful) implications in healthcare in general, e.g:
Surgeons being untrained (and/or unwilling) to operate on fat people
Getting a one-size-fits-all dose that was calculated using average weight, and now doesn’t work
MRI machines are famously claustrophobia-inducing for thin people; now try not fitting in it in the first place
…and so forth. So oftentimes, obesity will be correlated with a poor healthcare outcome, where the problem is not actually the obesity itself, but rather the system having been set up with thin people in mind.
It would be like saying “Having O- blood type results in higher risks when receiving blood transfusions”, while omitting to add “…because we didn’t stock O- blood”.
Read more on this topic: Shedding Some Obesity Myths
Does she have practical advice about this?
If she could have you understand one thing, it would be:
You deserve better.
Or if you are not fat: your fat friends deserve better.
How this becomes useful is: do not accept being treated as the problem!
Demand better!
If you meekly accept that you “just need to lose weight” and that thus you are the problem, you take away any responsibility from your healthcare provider(s) to actually do their jobs and provide healthcare.
See also Gordon’s book, which we’ve not reviewed yet but probably will one of these days:
Are you saying fat people don’t need to lose weight?
That’s a little like asking “would you say office workers don’t need to exercise more?”; there are implicit assumptions built into the question that are going unaddressed.
Rather: some people might benefit healthwise from losing weight, some might not.
In fact, over the age of 65, being what is nominally considered “overweight” reduces all-cause mortality risk.
For details of that and more, see: When BMI Doesn’t Measure Up
But what if I do want/need to lose weight?
Gordon’s not interested in helping with that, but we at 10almonds are, so…
Check out: Lose Weight, But Healthily
Where can I find more from Aubrey Gordon?
You might enjoy her blog:
Or her other book, which we reviewed previously:
Enjoy!
A QUICK QUESTION…
What is your (health-related) view of ice baths? |
We’ll then talk about this on Friday!
❤️ OUR SPONSORS MAKE THIS PUBLICATION POSSIBLE
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Please do visit our sponsors—they help keep 10almonds free
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📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW
This Is Your Brain on Food: An Indispensable Guide to the Surprising Foods that Fight Depression, Anxiety, PTSD, OCD, ADHD, and More – by Dr. Uma Naidoo
First, what this book is not: a "detox cleanse" book of the kind that claims you can flush out the autism if you just eat enough celery.
What it rather is: an overview brain chemistry, gut microbiota, and the very many other bodily systems that interact with these "two brains".
She also does some mythbusting of popular misconceptions (for example with regard to tryptophan), and explains with good science just what exactly such substances as gluten and casein can and can't do.
The format is less of a textbook and more a multipart (i.e., chapter-by-chapter) lecture, in pop-science style though, making it very readable. There are a lot of practical advices too, and options to look up foods by effect, and what to eat for/against assorted mental states.
Bottom line: anyone who eats food is, effectively, drugging themselves in one fashion or another—so you might as well make a conscious choice about how to do so.
What did you think of today's newsletter?We always love to hear from you, whether you leave us a comment or even just a click in the poll if you're speeding by! |
May today see you happy and healthy in every way,
The 10almonds Team
