Hey gang ... I'm working on the Big Fat Lies blogumentary ... just when I think I've found everything I'm remembering to include, I come across more. But I'm near completion and after some time to do other things in my life (grin) will likely get to publishing it next week. In the meantime, I came across a quote that really turned me off to Taubes when I heard it. It really had little to do with his scientific manglings, but more to do with his attitude about fat tissue regulation showing an utter disregard for eating disorders. I blogged on it once over on the Chronicles blog but couldn't find the quote at the time. So when I heard it this time, you can imagine it jumped out at me!
As someone who struggled with ED's, and could just have easily succumbed to anorexia rather than what eventually led to lifelong struggle with overweight and obesity, I found this personally offensive. It's moreso because I feel that Taubes misuses the works of Hilde Bruch -- probably the single name most associated with studying and treating eating disorders -- to support his so-called Alternate Hypothesis. Bruch is the author of The Golden Cage and various other books on both anorexia and obesity. I have a copy of this book and just paged through it to refresh. Bruch was not, as Taubes would have you believe, fixated on some metabolic even that precipitated this disease or others. Her focus was on finding out how it starts so perhaps to prevent it from progressing, and how to help (mostly young girls) sufferers unlock their cages.
Sure, you can feed an anorexic carbs (and protein) and pump them full of insulin and put bodyweight back on them. This will not cure them, however, and may well be one of the more cruel things you could do to a human being capable of literally starving themselves to death because they are so afraid of gaining weight and their reflection in the mirror.
So I put together this "short" since I was playing with a different video production program.
