Fit is a Feminist Issue, Friday Link Round Up #94

This is where we share stuff we can’t share on Facebook page. Sometimes it’s for fear of being kicked out! Read why here. Usually the posts are about body image, sometimes there’s nudity but we’re all adults here. Right? Other times it’s because we can’t easily moderate comments on the FB page and things get out of control fast. Here, most of the time, conversations tend to be calmer and slower. I’m not sharing these links because I agree with everything in them. I think they are all of interest to people interested in the connections between fitness and feminism.

• The future of sex in elite sport: Sex has long been used to divide sporting competitions in the name of fairness, but are the current rules and enforcement practices fit for purpose?
• My problem with the discourse around “obesity” “Fatness and sex actually have a lot in common. The problem with fatness is very similar to the problem with sex. American society doesn’t know enough about these topics because they’re horrifically understudied. And they’re horrifically understudied in large part because they’re so stigmatized. They’re also very gendered. The way people socialized as men experience sex and fatness are quite different from the way people socialized as women experience them.”
• Fat and Healthy? What the Science Says About Longevity and Weight “According to a 2014 U.S. study, more than two-thirds of respondents agree with the statement, “one of the worst things that could happen to a person would be for [them] to become obese.” Presumably, there’s a fear of weight stigma, shortened life expectancy, and poorer quality of life. This article aims to examine what the science says about what adipose tissue really does to the body, look at how it affects human life extension, and suggest considerations for larger individuals who are spanners.”  
• Weight Shaming (Not Free Doughnuts) Is The Real Health Threat. Here’s Why. “Those who have spoken out against the free doughnut incentive argue that eating doughnuts might ruin someone’s health. But other experts pointed out that this isn’t really about health — it’s about fatphobia. “By couching this in terms of health, people can more readily express fatphobic sentiment without repercussion because it’s seen as coming from a place of ‘concern’ for well-being,” said Jeffrey Hunger, an assistant professor and social psychology researcher at Miami University in Ohio who studies the health consequences of stigma.”

• 5.2 million people die from inactivity each year: what’s the solution? Around 1.5bn people worldwide are so inactive they are risking their long-term health. But fixing this problem could help save both people and planet.
• Megan Rapinoe: Bills to ban transgender kids from sports try to solve a problem that doesn’t exist “These bills are attempting to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. Transgender kids want the opportunity to play sports for the same reasons other kids do: to be a part of a team where they feel like they belong. Proponents of these bills argue that they are protecting women. As a woman who has played sports my whole life, I know that the threats to women’s and girls’ sports are lack of funding, resources and media coverage; sexual harassment; and unequal pay.”
• Why are Americans Obsessed with Fitness? Historian Jürgen Martschukat argues we’ve lost the joy in moving our bodies, “What’s especially peculiar about the West’s fitness-mania is that it isn’t tied to organized sport, nor to winning a medal, but rather the goal of “achieving a fit body.” That goal has become a mechanism to perpetuate privilege, Martschukat writes. “This body, in turn, stands for an array of partially overlapping forces, abilities and ideals, which point far beyond the doing of the sport,” he says. “These encompass one’s health and performance in everyday life and at work, productivity and the ability to cope with challenging situations, potency, a slim figure, and a pleasing appearance according to the prevalent standards of beauty.”
• Extreme Exercise Carries Metabolic Consequences “As a researcher at the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences, Filip Larsen would hear anecdotes about the downsides of too much exercise—a common enough phenomenon that nevertheless puzzled him. “All athletes know if you train too much, something’s happening. . . . Your legs feel terrible after a while, and then if you just continue, you have these psychological disturbances too, like mood disturbances,” he says. “That hasn’t been really described in the literature—no one knows exactly what’s going on.” To find out, Larsen and his colleagues recruited 11 healthy young people and put them through a four-week, increasingly intense regimen of sessions on a stationary bike while monitoring their glucose tolerance and mitochondrial function. During the toughest week, the subjects displayed insulin resistance and other deleterious metabolic changes, the team reported last week (March 18) in Cell Metabolism.”
• Roll flower tattoos celebrate fat bodies in their natural state Artist Carrie Metz-Caporusso created these designs to highlight a part of the body society usually tells us to be ashamed of.