I listen to news radio in the morning. Traffic, weather, you know. So from time to time I hear some outrageously stupid reporting.
Like this story on younger women dying of heart disease.
Heart experts aren’t sure what went wrong, but they think increasing rates of obesity and other risk factors are to blame.
The doctor interviewed on the radio suggested that perhaps women weren’t as aware of the risks, and weren’t paying as much attention to their diets.
Women. Weren’t paying as much attention. To their diets.
::headdesk::
Raise your hand if you think that could possibly be true. Anyone? Bueller?
Women pay constant attention to their diet. It’s unusual and remarkable for a woman not to pay attention to her diet.
Waaaaaay at the bottom of the article, there’s one smart statement:
The fact the male rate didn’t worsen may indicate doctors are more likely to suspect heart disease in men that age than in women, said the CDC’s Dr. Earl Ford, a study co-author.
Ya think? Ya think that maybe the fact that most women don’t even know that heart attack symptoms are different for women than for men. Because we aren’t educated. Because male symptoms are “person” symptoms. Because men are the default person. You know.
Or, it might be that too much dieting is causing the problem. There are cardiovascular risks to yo-yo dieting. Or it might be, um…anything other than women aren’t paying enough attention to their diets. Because really, that’s the stupidest thing I will hear today.
Well, yeah. If women paid attention to their diets, there would be no fat women, thus no heart attacks in women. Cuz, you know, thin attractive women NEVER get heart attacks, NEVER have heart disease, only ugly fat overweight women. Been that way since the dawn of time when the females with ribs showing was attractive, just like all the pictures and paintings show the world over. All of them thin beautiful women. Cuz, Rubenesque women were named that for the Rubens they were eating to get fat….
Sorry, had to stop there. I was starting to drown in that puddle of sarcasm.
Dangit, there was supposed to be a false HTML tag in there. Dangit!
I think the comment software edits those out.
We won’t mention the disordered eating that is propagated across our culture even- especially by Dr’s and medical professionals. My doctor doesn’t understand what I mean when I ask him about my low cholesterol. I should be happy about that, right? Not if my number is 80, which has been linked to liver issues and depression (You don’t even know how many journals I had to wade through to find that info- even doing a search for hypocholesterolemia leads you to high cholesterol studies, because it assumes you miss-spelled). Maybe I should become a dr, but I don’t have the patience to get through the BS of Med School.
BTW- came here from Kate Harding- took a moment to make the connection (sometimes I am slow) and realized that you are the author of the Elements of Ritual residing in my bookcase. Very cool.
Actually, my aunt caused a fair bit of heart damage to herself when she became anorexic. There’s a case of too much attention paid to one’s diet.
Welcome, Krista, glad you found me!
Dawa Lhamo, good point. Disordered eating is equated in the media with obesity, but that’s just wrong.
Of course, one can claim that the increase in heart disease and diabetes is due to women not focusing on their diets. Sure, that must be it.
It couldn’t possibly, oh I don’t know, have anything to do with the stress today’s younger women are dealing with. Working outside the home, high pressure jobs, single parenthood, raising families hardly leaves a lot of time to focus not only on one’s diet.
I don’t think there is a woman alive that isn’t concerned about her diet. no matter what her current weight is. I don’t know how we can avoid it, when the media makes certain that we’re reminded of it incessantly!
T
Does the phrase “lower threshold of diagnosis” mean anything to them? I hate to tell all the “fat people are bankrupting the health care system” folks out there, but Big Pharma wants as many people as possible to be diagnosed with something pill-able as young as possible, so they can keep raking in the megabucks. Thus the standards for hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, hypercholesterolemia, etc. keep getting ratcheted lower and lower and lower. We cannot get thin enough to outsmart them. And they will never be called on it by the Paid Media, because Big Pharma is paying them, too. It has to be the fault of the greedy fatties, and especially the greedy fat ladies who don’t know they’re supposed to be eating like bunnies (but certainly not fucking like them).