"Losing Weight To Glorify God" ?

This is something that has been on my mind for a while- I saw one of my relatives was in the facebook group, Losing Weight To Glorify God. This relative really not that big. Plus, she was pregnant recently. So naturally, I was like..."?".

I was always praised by people like her, on that side of my family, who were a little bit heavier than me, for being "so thin!", "You look so good!", "You're so pretty!".

These relatives are not "fat" . They are just built a little bigger than the average starlet. They don't eat that much at all. When we are eating together, Raj and I are always the ones stuffing our faces and getting 5 desserts.

This reminds me of the whole Howard Stern/Gabby Sidibe bullshit. So now Howard Stern is a philanthropist and doctor, not a shock-jock. Now it's acceptable to make people feel less than human because of "concern for their health". People who are unhealthy- eating foods with high sugar and fat, not exercising- may or may not become "fat," often it depends on thier genes. Besides, you don't know shit about anyone if you're not their doctor. And some doctors even have biases to believe that bigger people are inherently unhealthy. But by the way the media shows it- if you are big, you show a disgusting neglect for health. I literally had an argument with a friend over whether we should acknowledge and treat "morbidly obese" people like human beings. When this subject came up this friend, she got so angry, she was just filled with hatred and vitriol taught by the media against people who were fat -especially women, and minorities. This is the way the media teaches people to feel about fat people. At best, pity. At worst, hate and disgust.

I remember seeing "Super Size Me" a few years back, I liked the parts that tackled the actual issue- the corporations that promote this unhealthy eating and how obesity is a class issue: cheap foods are the most unhealthy, no time or money to excersize, etc.- but I could have done without the montages of people who were not supermodels, the jokes and all around insentitivity about fat people, and that guy who said something like... "people harass smokers all the time- it's wrong!- when will it be OK to harass fat people?" (if you have a name or corrected quote for me, it would be appreciated). It's like, dumbass, it's been happening for years. Plus, that movie used Queen's "Fat Bottomed Girls" and made it into a negative. Those Bitches. Freddie said that being a fatty is good. So basically, who are you to challenge that? But obviously, everyone should be comfortable and happy with the body they have. Because we've seen that in different cultures and times, women desperately tried and were forced to be bigger to please their husbands. But Freddie liked these fat bottomed girls because they were different from the norm, the accepted idea of beauty.

That side of the family are also conservative Christians. I wondered if there were more of these groups that were for Christian women to lose weight, the first one I found was Live Well! A Biblical Approach to Losing Weight & Feeling Great, a group dedicated to Christian women losing weight and "finding their worth in the eyes of our Father". It also included a link to a site, a page on Christian Woman Online, all about, again, losing weight, looking good and measuring/posing with apples and pears (?).

Also, This:

.....? Ooh, you're sooo much healthier now. And closer to God! WTF! That's the worst before and after picture ever.

Again, the focus is on how one looks and not their actual health. I'll admit, I am really, really unhealthy, all I eat is junk food. And I don't exercise. I'm serious. But because, for some reason, I still (mostly) fit into the weight range women are supposed to be, so no one confronts me about it or treats differently me. OK, my mother does from time to time because she's afraid I will be fat. (Whatever- family joke.)

This is something I've seen in the Christian community as a feminist, we obviously know a lot about the radical Christian right, that calls feminists "feminazis," but I have never seen true Chrisitianity as against feminism. But one of my problems with Christianity, as with most other belief systems, even the supposedly forward-thinking atheist movement, that obviously it can be sexist (or racist, homophobic, etc.), but I think even just that it doesn't help people deal with these modern issues and they don't explicitly help us not fall into the traps of our modern society. Obviously, religion is good and mostly encourages positive behavior. My personal struggle with religion is that if I am to consider myself religious, I am supposed to basically accept that belief system as the only thing that guides my life. I had to struggle with this, because I felt weird about certain things in our culture, but religion didn't really have anything to say about it. Or nothing specific. I just want people to realize that even if you do associate with a certain belief system, you still need a mechanism to understand modern culture...Feminism! You go, Feminism!

Plus, feminism is not anti-religion, there are plenty of Islamic feminists out there (I like supporting my fellow bloggers),there are Christian feminists out there- Christian Feminist for one and feminists of all different belief systems. Feminism is just against religions/belief systems when they lie down to the patriarchy and societal norms and injustices. So, I just do not like this sexist body-hate that goes on in the name of Christianity.

This reminds me of this Bitch Alert song, "God Doesn't Like Me"

(Ew. Feet. That say "war". Still. Ew...I have an anti-foot fetish.)

Here are the lyrics:

God doesn't like me cuz i look bad
Doesn't like me cuz i look bad
Doesn't like me cuz i'm bad

God doesn't like me cuz i look bad
Doesn't like me cuz i look bad
Cuz i'm ugly cuz i'm bad

No she doesn't like me cuz i spit
Doesn't like me cuz i don't pray
Doesn't like me cuz i'm a gay

No she doesn't like me cuz i swear
Doesn't like me cuz i don't care
Doesn't like me cuz i'm a whore!

God doesn't like me cuz i'm bad
Nobody wants the bad
God only likes the good girls

God doesn't like me cuz i'm bad
Doesn't like me cuz i'm mad
God only likes the good girls, good girls

Wow. I really did not mean for this to be an anti-religion diatribe. My bad.