Five Great Things About Having a One-Week-Old Baby
5. The explosion of pink! It's like a Pepto Bismol factory vomited all over my house. And I love it. Let's face it, I needed a little estrogen backup around here.

4. Having my husband home all week. Not only did he entertain the three boys marvelously but he also caught up on a bunch of home improvement projects. I have curtains again! (No thanks to the Tarzan-monkeys that pulled them all down in the first place. You know that phrase "hanging from the chandeliers"? It's not just a colloquialism at our house. That has literally happened. And yes, the chandelier came right out of the ceiling. They don't make 'em like they used to! Chandeliers, that is, not kids. As far as I know kids are still made exactly like they used to be. No, I'm not giving you instructions so don't ask. ANYHOW.)

3. Finding out how many people love us. I am still overwhelmed by all the gifts, meals, phone calls, e-mails and other acts of kindness that have come our way. (Truth to be told, I'm feeling a little undeserving. But grateful! Very, very grateful.)

2. I'm not pregnant anymore! I can see my feet! No more heart burn! I can put on pants like a normal human being again (well, I would be able to if normal pants fit yet.) If I suck in really hard I can imagine I have a waist again! Plus, my rack is awesome. Yeah, I said it. Seriously, this is so exciting for me that I would have put it as number one except that nothing trumps...

1. My sweet little baby! She is the squishiest, cutest, cuddliest, yummy-smellingest, most adorable, best baby ever! (You know, except for my previous three. What? Someday they are going to learn how to read and we all know Google is Forever.)

Five Not-So-Great Things About Having a One-Week-Old Baby 1. It turns out they can all be condensed into one bad thing: anxiety. Sure, I could whine about multiple night feedings, my kangaroo stomach, my milk letting down every 3 hours on the dot (tingly!) and everything else that comes with caring for a post-partum body and a new infant but really these things don't bother me much. At least not compared to the hanging-by-my-fingernails post-partum anxiety.

I've written before about how my version of the "baby blues" entails obsessive worrying and panic attacks - called post-partum panic/anxiety disorder - and how it gets worse with every child. I knew this was coming so I wasn't surprised by the heart palpitations and racing thoughts (5th time's the charm!). I think I'm dealing with it pretty well - I spend a lot of time meditating, talking myself down and basking in the atomic glow of my Happy SAD Light - but it doesn't make it any less uncomfortable. With my last baby it seemed to peak at about 2 weeks post-partum and get better from there. I'm hoping for a similar arc with this one. In the meantime, thanks to all of my friends and family members that have babysat me in the evenings this past week!

Of course one of the hardest parts of this PPA is that I still can't use my primary coping mechanism: exercise. Now that I'm feeling much better after the birth, I'm anxious (ha! get it?) to return to real workouts and not just walking. But I know if I start too much too soon my body will slap me down like a WWF wrestler except instead of a chair over the head it will be mastitis (wow, just using that word makes me feel like a cow.)

Reader Rachel wrote to me a while ago asking what my post-partum exercise plan was. Here it is: not get sick. As we all learned from the infamous mice-on-mini-treadys studies, exercise in moderation boosts your immune system but too much makes you sicker than none at all. I started several days after her birth with just some seriously slow walking. Now that we've passed the one-week mark I plan on upgrading that to moderate walking and yoga. Week three I'm adding in some weights. I'm making myself wait to do anything hardcore like TurboKick until a month. Running we'll just have to wait and see as my hips are still completely disconnected and have the nasty habit of going in opposite directions when I walk.

What is your advice for coming back from a long exercise hiatus? Even if you've never been pregnant, almost everyone has had to work back from an injury, illness, surgery or other life event! Anyone else get post-partum anxiety?

As many of you have now surmised, Thursday morning found me, my Husband of the Good Genes, and my Doula Beth in the Labor & Delivery ward of the hospital at the crack of dawn. I was feeling chipper, strong and so so ready to get this baby out! Despite all my best control-freak efforts to start labor on my own (I even did Turbo Jennie's PiYo class on Monday!) - and thanks to all of you for your suggestions; I tried many of them! - my due date had arrived and the baby had not. Given my history of 10-lb babies and my "extremely favorable cervix" (Why thank you, doctor! Can I get that on a t-shirt?) my doctor decided it would be best to induce.

Thankfully since I was already so far dilated and effaced, I didn't need a medical induction (a.k.a. the dreaded pitocin) and just required a little push to get me on my way. So we snapped one last pic of the babe on the inside:

And they broke my water which for those of you non-baby-makers out there involves the amniotic sac and a very long crochet hook. I'll let your imagination take it from there.

Doula Beth had some slightly unconventional ideas for how to get my contractions going from mild squeezes to full-on pain party. Did arm wrestling work? I don't know but the laughing sure took the edge off things! (Who won? We tied but I'm guessing it is only because she felt sorry for me being in labor and all.)


Next up were some vigorous side to side lunges. Between these and the hours of walking the halls, I definitely still got my workout in! I know I look like I'm in the stage production of Patch Adams here but things were actually getting ouchie by this point.

[THERE ARE NO PICTURES OF THIS NEXT PART!] After I started sobbing in the hallway, Beth banned more walking and I banned further picture taking. Sobbing quickly moved on to screaming and then total hysteria. I am not a calm woman in labor. We'll leave it at that.

After what felt like an hour of the most excruciating pain I've ever been in (although Doula Beth said it was closer to 10 minutes), I pushed once and Baby was here! First question: "Is she really a girl?!?"

Red bow says yes! (You know they come out with those on, right?) PS> For those of you wondering about her distended belly, it's because it's full of amniotic fluid still as my one-push wonder didn't get enough time in the birth canal to get it all squeezed out. It came out later. There was much vomiting.


I was one wiped mama but so very happy to finally be holding our long-awaited girl on the outside! They handed her to me, I apologized profusely to everyone in the room and... bliss:)

Dear Readers, thanks so much for your support and encouragement during this pregnancy. You have no idea how much all your comments and e-mails helped! And many thanks to my mom and family and our many friends here for all the help here! Both baby and I are doing great and recovering at home now.

Much love,
Charlotte

The things I do for you people. Seriously. Everyone around me thinks I'm one tinfoil hat short of an alien encounter. And I did it for you.

EFT
Pronounced "fffffftttt" (kidding - it's actually pronounced "I spit a lot"), Emotional Freedom Techniques is, in brief, a series of body movements, singing, tapping and eye rolling that you perform in a specific order to achieve emotional freedom.

Lest you say, "But I did not know I was in emotional bondage, Charlotte!" I must point out that everyone has some binding emotions. Think of this as an emotional laxative. Plus it will really make those holiday dinners a lot more entertaining once the Aunts get a load of you doing this.

Gary Craig, the founder of emofree.com, and one of the most ardent supporters of EFT explains, "Based on impressive new discoveries regarding the body's subtle energies, Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) has proven successful in thousands of clinical cases. It applies to just about every emotional, health and performance issue you can name and it often works where nothing else will." (emphasis his, actually if you go to his site you will discover he is very fond of The Bold.)

He asserts that this technique will help with everything from pain management to addictions to eating disorders to weight loss and everything in between. For my studies though, I was particularly interested in how some people use the technique to help manage cravings.

To be completely honest, I was pushed into this experiment by my overly aggressive bag of Halloween candy (I hate you Willy Wonka and your CandyLand house of HFCS horrors). A junior mint here, a nerd there, pretty soon I was pooping green food dye and getting sugar hangovers in the mid afternoon. The neighbors were starting to talk.

Full of good intentions (and you know where those lead), I downloaded the free EFT instructional manual. First thing you should know - it's not a manual. It's eighty-freaking-seven pages. It's an e-book. As if your butt isn't already squished into the shape of your (very uncomfortable IKEA) office chair. I skimmed. A lot. Okay, so I just read the bolded stuff. But there was a lot of bolded stuff!

You get the two-minute rundown: basically there are points on your body that are supposed to be emotional release points. Using your index and middle finger you either tap or massage each point. Craig gives a very lengthy explanation and list of steps with various different formulations. Some would say I have a short attention span, I would say I'm built like a hummingbird, but however you look at it Paul McKenna is more succinct:

• Close your eyes and open them.

• Keep your head still, keep tapping and look down to the right then down to the left.

• Keep tapping and rotate your eyes round 360 degrees clockwise, and now 360 degrees anti-clockwise.

• Now hum the first few lines of ‘Happy Birthday’ out loud.

• Count out loud from 1 to 5.

• Once again hum the first few lines of ‘Happy Birthday’ out loud.

That's right, you will be systematically tapping yourself in strange places whilst chanting happy birthday and counting like an over caffeinated preschooler. But other than your pride, what could it hurt to try?

For the last 3 days, every time I have gotten a craving for one of those nefarious little bars I have, much to my children's amusement, got down with the tapping, singing and eye rolling. In fact, it got so bad that the younger one really thought it was his birthday and the older ones were starting to imitate me. ("You can't do that sweetie, Teacher will think you have strange tics and send you home early and then I'll never get my workout in. Plus Teacher already thinks mommy is crazy because mommy missed your randomly assigned "birthday" - since you were a summer baby - and left you bereft of peanut-free cupcakes and/or smelly erasers.")

The end result? I ate less candy. For reals. I don't know why. Gary Craig would say that my negative attitude is making me skeptical. I personally think my negative attitude makes me fun at parties but I digress. Whatever the reason - whether it was just distracting myself long enough for the craving to pass or that I "set my emotions free" - it seemed to work. In fact, during one rebellious moment I consciously argued with myself about actually doing the technique:

Me: I want the Swedish fiiiiiisssshhhh!
Other Me: Do the EFT!
Me: No! Because then I won't want to eat the Swedish fish anymore.
Other Me: Well, huh.

I didn't do the EFT and I ate the Swedish fish, feeling marvelously defiant. Take that - ! Um, who am I rebelling against exactly? Me? Oh. Take that, me.

Like I said, I don't know why it worked. I don't even know if it will keep working. But there is a surprising body of research supporting this as a valid technique beyond just the power of positive thinking. Check it out. In the end, what do you have to lose? Except a little bit of credibility but who cares what those homeless people in the alley think. You shouldn't be shooting up smack anyhow. Besides, they're just jealous of your nifty hat.

Any of you have experience with EFT? Who's willing to do a mini-Experiment of their own? What holiday is your food downfall? (Mine's Easter - darn jelly beans.)

PS> Look for baby news coming soon! It is imminent!

Exercise boosts your immunity. It's one of the most touted reasons for getting a good sweat on and in this season where the H1N1 virus has become more popular among school kids than Miley Cyrus, this factoid is getting more play than Jude Law. But is it true? Does exercise really boost your immune system? Two new studies just out examine this connection and the results are not as clear cut as everyone would like to believe.

When I first fell in love with regular exercise and healthy (or healthier, anyhow) eating in my early 20's, one of the first things I noticed was rather than the 6 or so colds I'd been getting every year I was now only getting one or two. This was especially exciting as I'd watch my non-gym buddies drop like flies all around me while I remained hale and hearty because there's nothing I love more than some nice schadenfreude on a cool fall day. In all seriousness, people began to ask me why I never got the bugs going around and I was more than pleased to tell them "healthy living."

A few years later down the road of hubris and kids in that germ-incubator we call school had me singing a different tune. Suddenly I was getting more of the sickies although I was still proud to note that most of the time the case was pretty mild. This was also the time when I started to really ramp up my exercise (see GFE supreme failure double cardio). But I thought nothing of it because I knew - fallacy alert! - that the more I exercised the healthier I was. Still, I never quite made the connection.

Mice are smarter than I am. Well, research mice anyhow. This past week two studies were reported in the New York Times examining the effects of no exercise, moderate exercise and high intensity exercise. Both experiments involved little mice running on twee treadmills (adorbs!) and then being exposed to a lethal-to-mice flu virus. Researchers found:

“'A J-shaped curve' involving exercise and immunity. In this model, the risk both of catching a cold or the flu and of having a particularly severe form of the infection 'drop if you exercise moderately,' says Mary P. Miles, PhD, an associate professor of exercise sciences at Montana State University and the author of an editorial about exercise and immunity published in the most recent edition of the journal Exercise and Sport Sciences Review. But the risk both of catching an illness and of becoming especially sick when you do “jump right back up” if you exercise intensely or for a prolonged period of time, surpassing the risks among the sedentary."

This whole moderation thing makes sense to me - in theory of course, you know how I am - but it is that last sentence that really tweaked my interest. Could intense exercise - defined as "a workout or race of an hour or more during which your heart rate and respiration soar and you feel as if you are working hard" - really be worse for your immune system than being sedentary? I would think that of all three groups, the lazy mice would have fared the worst.

Not true say hundreds of ghostly rodents. The second study found, "more than half of the sedentary mice died [after being exposed to the flu virus]. But only 12 percent of the gently jogging mice passed away. Meanwhile, an eye-popping 70 percent of the mice in the group that had run for hours died, and even those that survived were more debilitated and sick than the control group." Lest mice aren't convincing enough, researchers also tested the level of immunoglobulins, substances that fight off infection, in the saliva of professional athletes. These researchers concurred with the rodents saying, “the longer the duration and the more intense the exercise, the longer the temporary period of immunosuppression lasts — anything from a few hours to a few days."

So what's a sweat-lovin' guy or gal to do? Especially if you are signed up for a marathon or other long immunosuppressing race this season? Some suggestions to prevent illness (also known as the OCD Christmas list):

- Wash your hands often
- Carry hand sanitizer (and use it)
- Don't touch your face
- Wipe down equipment at the gym both before and after using it
- Make sure your diet includes plenty of fresh fruits and veggies
- Get adequate sleep
- Get a flu shot, if you're into that kind of thing
- Stay home and rest if you have a fever, sore throat, body aches or sprout a curly tail
- Take it easy on the exercise if you just have a cold
(You've heard the rule: if it's above the neck, you're okay to work out gently; if it goes below the neck then stay the heck away from the rest of us you psycho.)

There. I'll stop being your mom now. Anyone else surprised by these studies? What are your tips for staying healthy this season? What has been your experience with your exercise and immune system?

Sleep is great. Not only does it feel awesome but it helps you burn fat better, strengthens your immune system, makes you smarter, lessens depression and helps avoid unfortunate decision making. (I may or may not have eaten about 20 mini candy bars pilfered from my childrens' Halloween stashes after a recent sleepless night, ahem). Exercise is also fantastic. It ups your metabolism, gives you greater energy, helps your mood, and ameliorates the stress incurred from any unfortunate decisions you have recently made. (The Almond Joys might have been really really good. Not that I'm admitting anything - that's between me and the calorie counter on the treadmill.) A lack of either sleep or exercise brings down a host of evils upon your head that I won't detail as we all know it is magazines' jobs to scare us silly but suffice it to say it all comes back to You Could Die. Consequently, one of the questions you hear the most bandied about in fitness circles - and one I think is answered the worst - is about how to balance sleeping and exercise in a time-crunched world.

Generally the person asking the question says something along the lines of, "I have one hour in the morning during which I can either sleep or workout. I can't do both. Which is a better health investment for my time?"

The advice-giver invariably answers, "You have to do both."

Over the sound of foreheads smacking desks, the asker mutters, "I just told you I can't do both."

Advice giver: "You must make time for both."

Asker: "Ideally, yes. But my life is not ideal, there are only 24 hours in the day and I have to sacrifice something. My wife ruled out offering up one of our children, my job is kind of important to life and so I've narrowed it down to either sleep or exercise."

Advice giver: "Exactly. Do both."

Not that I'm fond of trotting out my vast knowledge of Disney movies but the Sea Witch makes a good point to little perky-breasted (talk about a water bra!) Ariel when she croons, "Life's full of tough choices in it." Of course that was right before she pulled a Chase Bank credit card (yeah, you suck Chase!) maneuver and stole Ariel's twee voice after making her sign an incomprehensible contract but I digress. The point is that there are times when you will have to choose between exercise and sleep. And it isn't always as simple as advice columnists make it out to be.

For myself, I think you all know which one I choose. Confession time: when my current youngest (i.e. the one not still tenaciously occupying my womb) was in the hospital a couple of years ago with an unknown infection, I stayed by his side 24/7. He was so scared and so sick that the only way he would sleep was if I held him upright in the rocking chair. I didn't sleep for two days straight (also a measure of how scared I was). When my husband, who had been at home with our older two, came to spell me for a few hours so I could get some sleep and shower, you know what I did? I went straight to the gym and did kickboxing for an hour. I say this not as a point of pride - I am the girl who was diagnosed with compulsive exercise - but rather as a point of reference. Exercise: it's how I deal.

For many others however, it's the opposite situation. It's much easier to curl up in bed, hit snooze and ditch the morning jog. Sleep is how they deal.

The answer of course is the one thing I'm really not good at: balance. Don't worry, I'm not going to tell you that you must do both at the same time - although N8's comic above is wicked funny - but you do need to find that place of balance for yourself, weighing the pros and cons of each activity. For me that means forcing myself to not exercise sometimes. As I'm rapidly approaching that fabled sleeplessness that is life with an infant, I need to remind myself that lack of sleep makes me grouchy, depressed, and have mad sugar cravings. In short - cortisol city. It may be in my best interest to skip the gym in favor of a nap. For others that may mean forcing yourself out of bed three mornings a week to get in 30-60 minutes of exercise, even though you may not have had quite enough sleep.

In the end I think it is that concept of "enough" that we are all trying so hard to define. Most of us don't get enough of sleep or of exercise. Because life isn't perfectly calibrated. But that doesn't mean it's a loss! Just do the best you can do to fit both into your life over time and understand that on a daily basis you'll be probably be lacking in one area or the other. Here are some of my tips on how to do that:

- Make your workouts shorter. Crossfit, The Monkey Bar Gym and other interval or circuit style workouts offer a huge metabolic reward for a very short investment of time. You absolutely can get a quality workout in 30 minutes or less. You just have to work very very hard during those 30 minutes.

- Cut out TV. I know, I know, Glee is hysterical but if you are so time-crunched that you are forced to choose between sleep and exercise and TV I hope you realize which one of those three should go first. Trust me, its easier to do than you think it is!

- Take a nap. If it's one thing I learned from my time in Spain it is that every country should have a mandatory midday siesta. Remarkably restorative.

- Break up your workout into chunks. Yeah you probably won't change into workout clothes every time (although mad props if you rip off your suit and tie in a phone booth to reveal your Under Armor) but you can still work in lots of incidental exercise into your day.

- This may be my most important suggestion: Stop worrying about what you're not doing and focus on the benefits of what you are doing. Being a chronic worrier myself, I know how tempting it is to bemoan all that you are lacking but worrying only drives up those stress hormones. Every little bit - whether sleep or exercise - helps! So give yourself kudos for what you are getting right.

Certainly you all can do better than my wishy-washy answer though! Which do you think is the better investment: sleep or exercise? What tips do you have for finding that balance? Also, do they even have phone booths anymore? No wonder Superman died.

It is with great pleasure that I announce the comeback of the Great Fitness Experiment in practice rather than just in name only: For the month of November I am launching a new GFE. Lest you think I'm crazy and have forgotten the occupied state of my womb (4 days until my official due date!), I will tell you that I took that into account in picking this GFE. Which means, of course, that if a 9-months pregnant chick can do it, you certainly can too! It is based around one small fitness tweak that can have huge results. What is it? Standing.

That's right, I'm doing an Experiment about standing. Before you laugh yourself silly, consider the research, courtesy of Women's Health Magazine:
- Sitting down causes your body to shut down fat burning enzymes, reducing fat burnage by up to 50%.
- For every two hours spent camped out on your butt, your risk of diabetes increases 7%
- For every one hour on your backside, incidence of metabolic syndrome increases 26%
- Sitting for extended periods of time has also been linked to increased risk of heart disease and depression.
- Sitting for a long time is murder on your posture and can lead to all kinds of injuries due to weakened, imbalanced and inflexible muscles.

But, you say, I exercise! Every day, even! Unfortunately in our wired society, 30-60 minutes a day in the gym may not be enough to counteract the effect of playing potted plant for 8-10 hours a day, a number which sounds high until you actually count up all the time you spend sitting in front of the computer, the TV, at the table, in the car and on the floor because getting up when you can't bend at the waist is too much trouble (although that last one may just be me). Unless you have a very active job - like waitressing, construction work or hooking - then you probably spend way more time off your feet than on them.

In a recent study, Genevieve Healy, Ph.D., a research fellow at the Cancer Prevention Research Centre of the University of Queensland in Australia and her colleagues found:

"Regardless of how much moderate to vigorous exercise participants did, those who took more breaks from sitting throughout the day had slimmer waists, lower BMIs (body mass indexes), and healthier blood fat and blood sugar levels than those who sat the most. In an extensive study of 17,000 people, Canadian researchers drew an even more succinct conclusion: The longer you spend sitting each day, the more likely you are to die an early death—no matter how fit you are."

Come on, the researchers just broke out their trump card: sitting makes you dead! Ahem. Hyperbole aside, the fix for "sitting disease" and apparently all other modern travails is pretty simple. You have to up your incidental activity. The researchers call it NEAT for non-exercise activity thermogenesis because after conferences with booth girls, researchers love nothing more than a cute acronym. What that means for the rest of us is we have to find ways to move more.

The article suggests starting by making a commitment to stand up every half hour. I would add that maybe while you are on your feet, do a couple of jumping jacks or burpees. Not enough to get you all pit-stained before the big meeting but still plenty of fodder for your office mates to discuss behind your (well-toned) back. While I am not lucky enough to have physically present coworkers other than little people who already think everything I do is nuts, think of the fun you office people could have! You could swing at invisible bugs! You could make a sacrifice to the Purel gods in hopes of not catching swine flu! You could do a rain dance! Or a tap dance! Or the Single Ladies Dance (bonus points if you can get your coworkers to join in like on Glee)!! The options are endless really.

Okay fine, if you want more practical options the researchers add you can walk around whilst talking on the phone, suggest an outdoor jaunt when someone asks to talk to you, and the old sub-a-stability-ball-for-your-computer chair trick. (However, as someone whose job is done on a computer, I will tell you that the stability ball did not work well for me. It made my posture even worse and gave me terrible back pains.) Other ideas I thought of include standing up and walking to the kitchen or water cooler to get a drink of water, developing a trademark fidget or tic, using a stationary bike or treadmill while watching TV and - my personal dream - bumping up your computer desk to standing height and then buying one of those tall chairs so that you have the option of standing and surfing.


The Experiment
For the month of November, I am simply going to stand more. That's it! To remind myself to stand up every 30 minutes, I've installed TimeLeft, a free customizable desktop timer (it even plays mp3s in case dings bother you). In addition, I'm going to make 5 conscious choices to move more every day. (And yes, rocking the baby counts!) Pretty simple! Who's in with me? What are your ideas for simple ways to add more incidental movement to your life? And just out of curiosity, has that stability ball trick worked for anybody??

PS> If anyone has any suggestions on how to go into labor those would be much appreciated too!

In a shocking display of honesty or hubris (both?), the immensely likable Robert Verdi recently said, "A lot of women say 'I should've been alive when Ruben was because I'm Rubenesque.' So times have changed. There are different cultural norms and values and beauty identities, and the fact that thin is in — who cares? It's why I stopped eating. I think food is for fat people and poor people. Rich people don't eat. They get dressed up and go shopping." [Emphasis mine.]

Dear Robert,
I adored you on Trading Spaces. And The Fashion Police was a guilty pleasure of mine for quite a while. I've heard (though not seen as I have a policy of never watching the movie version of a book I have enjoyed) that you were utterly charming on The Devil Wears Prada. If there was ever a man I would want to give me a much-needed makeover, it would be you! You are the rare makeover artist who can transform a person - or their personal space - without making them feel bad about themselves. That's a gift, sir. But even all of that love for your spunky knits and weird headware cannot make me overlook this.

Because this is a serious problem. See: Food is for people people. All people. This attitude that eating represents a loss of self control and is only for the déclassé is abhorrent. With one fell swoop you hurt poor people, fat people, eating disordered people, normal-weight-but-afraid-of-becoming fat people and pretty much everyone else within the sound of your voice that isn't part of the pill-n-party LA culture. As a woman of normal - sometimes even "low" - weight, I must tell you that your statement makes me sick to my stomach. Not from revulsion. From fear. I live in constant terror that were I to gain weight, I would no longer be deserving of love. It's was a primary factor in my eating disorder and remains a great source of income for my therapist. (That's me, stimulating our economy one mental health professional at a time!)

You may think you are just stating the facts ma'am but the problem is that we have created a culture where people would rather die than be fat. Why? Because it has become acceptable, praiseworthy even, to abuse, belittle and humiliate people for their weight. Take the recent case of Marsha Coupe, a British woman who was beaten to a bloody pulp by another woman for the crime of taking up two seats on a train. There are so many horrible things about this incident: First, that the attacker was another woman; Second, that the train was practically empty; Third, that the motive for the attack was clearly and specifically targeted to the victim's weight as evidenced by the attacker screaming, "You big fat pig" before kicking Coupe in the face.

Coupe explains, "The government and the press have created an atmosphere where people think they have a legitimate right to go up to an overweight person and tell them how to live their lives. To them we are all the anonymous pictures of fat people they see in the papers and are the cause of all society's ills, as well as a drain on the NHS. We deserve what we get. We're not people with feelings."

So back to you Robert - your statement that fat people are not deserving of one of the most basic human rights, food, is exactly how we get to thinking that overweight people deserve whatever abuse people see fit to heap upon them because in the end it's "for their own good." If only we all had the self control to just blithely give up food like you! Psychologist Ros Taylor takes on this sadly prevalent attitude saying, "There is true aggression towards overweight people and it comes down to fear and a complete lack of understanding of the issue. People think 'I can control what I put in my mouth so why can't they'. But we're not all the same, we don't all start from the same point."

I'd like to think you were just being glib and silly, in the way that you so often got people to laugh at the silly and unflattering clothing they were hanging on to. Except that your statement and the attack on Marsha Coupe are two sides of the same soul-destroying coin. This time people are getting hurt, really hurt and it's not entertainment anymore. So I say with love: Please shut up.

Sincerely,
Charlotte