CW: Fat-shaming/Fat-phobic image shown and fat-phobic messaging discussed with attempts at biting sarcasm.
It’s September 2026. Who knew that The Weather Channel was going to 1) pile on with the fat-shaming; and 2) eschew the traditional headless fatty image, replacing it with the new and not-improved faceless fatty? Not me. But here we are, in September 2026, a time when everyone should know better and act better. But no– the Weather Channel, in the course of offering bland advice for maintaining health during cold weather, blasts us with a picture of a faceless fat person, apparently to convey seasonal fat-despair.
A fat person in a white T shirt, sitting at a table, their hand over their face. I am confused and displeased. Maybe they are, too, about having been used as weather warning message.
So, what is going on here? Why did the Weather Channel folks think this was an apt illustration for a content-lite article about what to do to maintain health as seasons change? By the way, the advice offered (from an ICU doctor, who, while no doubt well-meaning and skilled, is NOT a fitness expert for non-hospitalized people) includes 1) eat a bunch of protein (with a photo of dead animal parts– they’re not missing any opportunities here); 2) get enough sleep– oh right, thanks Weather Channel; and 3) walk outside, because “walking is magical”!
Yeah, it might be magical if you can walk here.
A magical golden-lit forest path. Good luck finding parking nearby. By Johannes P for Unsplash.
Back to the faceless fatty photo. I wonder, what message is intended by this image in this article? After extensive analysis, I came up with three possibilities:
Because they are fat AND the seasons are changing, they know they’re facing certain death;
They forgot to tell their friends and family that they’re fat, so want to remain unidentifiable in the picture– hence the hand over the face;
They’re really mad at their agent for sending them to such an absurd photo shoot, so they’re rebelling by shielding their face from view. Litigation is pending.
Here’s the thing: we know that images matter. They convey norms about what’s good, bad, healthy, unhealthy, cool, uncool, what we should aim for, and what we should avoid like the plague. Being fat doesn’t fall into any of these categories, any more than having brown hair or brown eyes. It’s just a feature of some people at some point in time. As a fat person, it’s a feature I have. Having brown hair is a feature I used to have, and now I have grey hair. Also a value-neutral thing.
So Weather Channel– enough with the underhanded attempts to connect being fat with current or impending refusal to follow your third-rate attempts at health and wellness advice! Do what you’re supposed to do– tell us if it’s going to rain tomorrow. That is messaging we would find eminently useful, at any size.
This person didn’t forget their umbrella for a nice, if non-magical, walk in the rain. By Habib I for Unsplash.
This fall marks my 58th year of back-to-school transitions from summer. I started out with elementary, middle and high school. Then on to university and graduate school. After that, work as a professor since 1993. My plans are to continue for the next five years and probably, maybe, possibly retire in 2031. But we will see how things go. I like my job and feel good, for which I feel very fortunate.
Also, I can’t imagine what life will be like when I don’t have to pull myself away from the slower, more indulgent routines of summer in order to begin a schedule of class prep, teaching, and seasonal increase in email and admin. As much as I love summer, it’s always deeply satisfying to return to the pleasures of new syllabi, new students, and well-worn and reliable work routines. It’s a little like pulling out fall clothing– I am happy to get reacquainted with favorite sweaters and jackets that I temporarily forgot about during warmer weather.
For me, fall transitions have meant arranging my physical activity around my work schedule and the seasonal light changes. This year feels different, though.
For a while now, I’ve been less active than in previous years. I struggle with an anxious brain even when life is general is fine, and it’s not been fine lately. My mother is declining, and helping her is difficult and complicated and extremely stressful. My sister and I are working together, but it’s hard.
This summer, I found that I needed quiet for than anything else. Quiet for meditation. Quiet for reading. Quiet for just being. My activities have been lower key– walking and yoga, a little easy cycling, a little swimming, often with friends or family. I went for a meditation retreat where quiet was explicitly on the agenda.
I thought, given how much quiet I needed and wanted and lived in this summer, that transition to the much louder days of fall would be hard. I’m happy to say that I’m really loving September so far. Here are some highlights:
Lily from my logic class loves plant cuttings, so I’m bring her some small jades this week. We talked for 20 minutes about our home plant communities, and I’m looking forward to more chat.
Already, I’ve got students following me out of the building and to my car, continuing discussions about philosophy. I find this so endearing and sweet and also nice for me.
I went to my friends Martin and Andrew’s 40th anniversary party in New York (I’m still here in the Big Apple, as it was last night). It was loud and fun and filled with friends and family and food and festiveness.
Today I’m walking around New York, through Greenwich Village, a place not known for sedate quietude. I’m looking forward to stimulation for all my senses, and hopefully not too many impulse purchases.
After Labor Day on Monday, I resume teaching on Tuesday, and start to settle into a fall routine. Which I actually love.
What does my activity look like for fall? Probably more of the same as I did in summer, although I’m looking forward to more cycling in cooler temperatures. I’ll go back to Friday night yoga classes with Norah and whoever else wants to come. Walks with friends and swimming (indoors, but that’s okay too) with friends and kids are always a pleasure. I’ll be traveling some to see my mother and helping her with what she needs and seeing my sister and kids and other family, too.
So life will be busy. And louder. And I’m glad.
Dear readers: what is your fall transition looking like? And how are you feeling about it? I’d love to hear from you.
A friend of mine just got back from a vacation on Long Island with his family and in-laws. He writes for a weekly newsletter, and shared this about his investigations at local farm stands:
At my favorite stand they sell “sugar plums,” a small, sweet fruit I haven’t seen anywhere else. Each one’s about the size of a fig. They’re more pit than fruit, but absolutely full of juice. When they’re ripe, the skin will peel off in your fingers. You can eat three or four of them in a row, ideally standing over the kitchen sink. (You’ll need a mop to clean up if you eat them anywhere else.)
I wasn’t familiar with sugar plums, and you might not be, either. Check them out.
These are what we might think are sugar plums, but aren’t. These are fresh sugar plums.
Last summer I spent a week or so in Ontario, visiting Goderich, where my friend Norah had rented a cottage on Lake Huron, and then Guelph to visit Samantha, Sarah and the whole crowd there. At Guelph I learned about musk melons, which were in peak season exactly when I was there.
Musk melon was a new term for me. Turns out it’s what Canadians call cantaloupe. The term also refers to a family of melons that includes honeydews and persian melons. We bought what looked and tasted almost like cantaloupe, and I made melon agua fresca with mint for everyone. Yum.
I have not had very satisfying melon experiences in New England. Nor peach encounters, either. Luckily, there are options, all of which involve going right to the source.
I traveled to South Carolina about two weeks ago and, on my way to my mother’s house from the airport in Charlotte, stopped at McLeod Farms in McBee (pronounced MAC-Bee). They have many varieties of perfect peaches (forget Georgia– SC has the best peaches, says the great-granddaughter of a SC peach farmer). But there are hidden treasures to be found in their supply of the fresh and limited supplies of hyper-local produce. That included large, perfect, not-expensive cantaloupes.
I squeezed and sniffed candidates until I found one that suited me. It rode the rest of the way to my aunt’s house, sitting on her counter for a couple of days until it achieved cantaloupe perfection. I then cut it in long, thin wedges to serve to happy family members.
Some add salt, which they say enhances the flavor, but I prefer to take my cantaloupe straight up, no salt.
Musk melons from Ontario.South Carolina cantaloupe– my hometown melon.
At my McLeod’s stop, I also bought muscadine and scuppernong grapes. They have tough outer skins, and very sweet green flesh, with seeds. They make you work for it. But the work pays off in a combo of sweet, juicy, and bitter that brings me back to my childhood.
My great aunt Mae used to make a scuppernong cordial that was (once I was old enough to taste it) absolutely vile. But the grapes themselves (grown in an arbor outside her kitchen) were delicious.
A disembodied hand holding purple muscadine grapes.A disembodied hand holding green scuppernong grapes.
Boiled peanuts were a staple of my childhood in SC, and they don’t travel well, either practically or gustatorally– I’ve brought them back to Boston a few times and people were notably underwhelmed. Hmphf. Their loss.
I bought green peanuts (different from raw peanuts) fro McLeod’s and boiled them for 75 minutes in an InstaPot with a lot of salt and a little Cajun spice (I recommend the Slap Yo Mama brand). They are basically Southern edamame, great warm and perfectly good cold as well. The best way to eat them is in the backyard, throwing the shells into the bushes. We forbore, though, and disposed of them more responsibly.
Fresh green peanuts (different from raw).Boiled peanuts– soooo gooood.
Fresh green peanuts and freshly boiled peanuts have a very minimal shelf life. They should be cooked right away, and then eaten right away. I always comply.
Now that I’m back in New England for the time being (school starts in two weeks), I’ll be keeping an eye out for concord grapes– the locally grown ones with seeds and tart outer skins. They are available generally late August to early October, depending on the weather that year.
I couldn’t find a picture of a disembodied hand holding New England concord grapes, but I think this will do.
Pretty much all of hyper-local and hyper-seasonal produce is like this– available for short period of time and good for eating NOW, not later. This means we have to stop what we were doing and turn to the preparation and subsequent massive enjoyment of these tasty treats of nature. And can you think of a better pastime for mid-late August? I can’t.
Dear readers, what are some of your late summer produce delights? Or other seasonal pleasures? I’d love to know and file away the info for when I’m at the proper time and place to enjoy them with you.
As I write this post on Sunday May 24, it’s 53F/11.5 C and raining in New England. This is not the May weather I grew up with, having been born and raised in South Carolina. However, after several decades of calling the Boston area home, I know that late spring doesn’t let go of its fickle grip on northern regions without some pushback. However, it does eventually become summer, and with summer comes… yes, sweating.
We at Fit is a Feminist Issue have written about sweating. Here are a few posts to check out:
Basically, Samantha is accepting of sweating, Mia is a sort of a sweat advocate, and I sweat a lot and complain about it. Until now.
A local mental health clinic in my area put up this public service list of things that are good about sweaing. I took this in, and am working on being more sweat-positive this summer.
Sweat positivity list– memorize this before the weather really turns hot and humid.
Okay, I can see that sweat is another occasion for appreciating my body. And it signals that I’ve done something (mostly; although I can sweat copiously while not moving an inch). Yes, sweat is a sensational experience (in one sense of the word). And it keeps me cool without having to start panting all the time.
Fine, sweating is good for us. Happy now?
I will be once I find myself in proper sweating weather. Which I hope will be this week. Will post a perspiration update (or not) later…
It’s May in New England, which means: flower power time! In particular, the tulips are out and showing off all over town. Everything is blooming these days, and I am reveling in the colors, shapes and textures of spring.
For whatever reason, this spring I’ve been in search of novelty– I’ve been craving new experiences and sensory experiences. One way I’ve satisfied this desire has been to seek out more music and dance– I’ve gone to two modern dance performances and heard four classical music ensembles live.
I’ve also brightened up my home by buying flowers through the winter– mostly Trader Joe’s tulips (20 stems for $12.99– you can’t beat that deal). Now I have a spring flower share, which I’m loving.
But now that spring is really really here and the weather, while often rainy, is warmer, nature is beckoning. I just renewed my membership to Garden in the Woods, and am planning a visit there with friend as soon as my final exams are over.
I’m also planning a trip to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, a humongous place with a great variety of gardens and natural areas to explore. It’s in Boothbay, Maine, a place I’ve never been, which is also a plus in the travel novelty category.
Now that I think about, my need for color and shape and texture outside the four walls of my home is not particularly novel. I wrote about my search for May flowers a couple of years ago. You can read it below.
This just goes to show that everything new is also old again. Which is kind of good news, I think.
Hi, dear readers! This is the first installment of my spring tulip share from Five Fork Farms, a local and sibling-owned-and-run farm and CSA. This was half of my birthday gift to myself. The other half is their fall dahlia share (which of course I will share with y’all when it comes out).
Nothing says spring to me more than tulips– these are delicate yellow-and-pink parrot tulips on my dining room table.
A simple blue vase with lovely, frilly butter-yellow and pale pink parrot tulips. Ain’t nature grand? And yes, that’s my robot T shirt hanging on a chair. Well, nature is complex and varied in its beauties, I guess…
There are two promises of more:
I’ll share my weekly spring tulips with all of you– it would be selfish to keep them all to myself.
I’ll share my new monthly regular Research Roundup post this afternoon. Stay tuned…
I like snow. I like cosy evenings. I like the way the air smells. I like bundling up to go outside. I’m a big fan of sweaters. I like seeing light on the snow. I even like shovelling snow (up to a certain point!)
And even on the most basic level, I just like the variation from other seasons of the year.
But by the time February comes, it is wearing on me.
It really starts at the end of January when time seems to both stretch and contract so I have really long days but really short weeks and then I somehow get unceremoniously dumped into February.
February takes forever and it is always a big struggle for me. I have extra trouble figuring out my time, my projects, and my capacity. It’s almost like my ADHD meds don’t fully work that month and everything is especially difficult and frustrating.
For example, this year I had a plan to do two small things in February. I was going to do a wall set for one minute a day and I was going to add more vegetables to my lunch
I did pretty well with the lunch vegetables but the wall sit? That just went wrong.
The wall set was somehow both too big a task and two smaller task at once. It felt like I could fit it in anywhere in my day., That sounds like an upside but if I can fit it in anywhere in my day then I’ll end arguing with myself all day about when to do it.
I realized that it’s hard to do a wall sit when I have socks on because I end up, slipping on both the flooring and the carpet while trying to hold the position.
But I could never convince myself to put on my sneakers to do a one minute exercise.
In fact, February fills up my brain so much that the sneaker idea didn’t occur to me until more than halfway through the month.
And I never did convince myself to put the sneakers on.
I noticed this February pattern a few years ago, and I have tried a variety of solutions to cope with this annual bewilderment. Things have improved, but there is still a ways to go and I am hampered by the fact that I often can’t see things are going sideways until they have reached an annoying level of sideways-ness.
Anyway, as you can, imagine, I was really glad to see March.
I’m not saying that March 1 is magic but I’m not NOT saying that.
Once we switch to March, it feels like my brain takes a deep breath and suddenly there’s a bit more space to figure things out.
You can’t tell now, of course, but this is where a single spring flower grows and blooms each year. I love watching for it as spring goes on. Image description, a photo of the back of someone’s fence with snow on the ground and a few evergreen trees about halfway between the viewer and the fence.
And once the clocks change, I see even more of an improvement in my perspective, my overall mood, and in my capacity to make useful plans and to follow through on them.
So, I was thinking about all of those things last week and then I overheard a conversation some friends of mine were having at TKD.
(This had nothing to do with martial arts, it had to do with spring.)
One of my friends is a farmer (she also runs a farm-tech company) and she said that there had been signs of spring for weeks
She said that we probably hadn’t even noticed, but the signs are there – more birds are singing, there are probably more bugs showing up in our houses, and that there are lots of things going on underground that we won’t see for ages.
And when she said that I realized that not only had I heard more birds and seen more bugs, but the sun was feeling a bit warmer and the ground felt somehow different than it had two weeks before.
Recognizing all those things felt so great that I started looking for more signs.
And I noticed that the tips of the branches of the trees were looking a little thicker, like growth has started.
Doesn’t that kind of look like buds at the tip of those branches? I’m not sure at what point a bud can be officially called a bud but something is going on right there.. Image description: A photo of a couple of the branches of the lilac tree in my front yard. At the tips of the branches are the suggestion of buds, even if they’re not buds yet. The branches are in the very foreground and in the background, you can See snow on lawns a few people’s driveways and some of my neighbours houses in the background.
And something about how the snow is sitting on the ground has changed. Even though we had more snow over the weekend, there’s something different and somewhat spring-y about it.
See:
It felt so good and so cheering to take a stroll today. A photo of my dog Khalee on our street on a sunny somewhat springlike day. The sun is behind us and she is standing where she can be seen in the photo. You can only see me as a shadow, and you can see the shadow of the leash that I’m holding that she is on the other end of. Her shadow was visible too, of course. There’s a small snowbank nearby and she’s standing on some greyish asphalt. She is a light brown, medium size dog. She’s mostly facing away from the camera, but she’s turned back a bit probably wondering why I stopped walking.
Even the colour of the sky seems deeper recently. it’s not quite a spring or summer sky, but it’s getting there.
I love seeing that blue get stronger. A photo of several leafless trees and a couple of evergreens next to a fence with snow on the ground. The sky behind the trees is an almost spring colour of blue with a few long white clouds
So with things getting ready to shift outside, it’s no wonder that things are also shifting in my brain.
In the last week or so, I’ve noticed myself thinking a bit more long-term about exercise plans again.
And it feels far easier to get myself to go for a walk, to do some yoga, or to just move around in general.
I was on a writing retreat this past weekend and instead of sitting at a table to work I was motivated to sit on my yoga mat on the floor instead, working on my lap, on a low table, or on the floor itself. That felt like a huge improvement because I know how much more likely I am to move and stretch and take good care of myself while I’m working if I’m seated on the floor.
No, I’m not saying that I couldn’t do any of these things three weeks ago, but now that first step, the initiation of that task, is decidedly easier.
I rang in the New Year (technically, the day after) in a way I heartily recommend: swimming with a friend and her toddler! My friend Rachel and I took her daughter Teagan to a local hotel pool that offers day passes. It’s pretty cold here in New England, and the hotel indoor pool offers a respite from freezing cold temperatures outside and cramped play spaces inside.
When we got there on Friday, there were about five kids in the pool horsing around, with a group of fully-clothed parents lounging and scrolling on their phones. We went into the locker room to change into bathing suits and headed into the relatively warm water.
Teagan isn’t a swimmer yet, being a few weeks shy of 3 years old, but she loved the water, and she loved playing with us. Favorite activities included:
Jumping from the side of the pool into the waiting arms of Rachel or me;
Bring hurled through the air (well, sort of) between Rachel and me in the pool, making a big splash as she landed;
being swirled in a circular motion, clockwise or counter-clockwise (she didn’t express a preference) while squealing, laughing and splashing;
blowing bubbles in the water;
watching us blow bubbles in the water;
pretend/sort-of-actual swimming, with a bit of assistance;
bobbing up and down, kicking her feet but not making any forward progress (which bothered her not a whit)
being wrapped up in multiple towels, including my rainbow beach towel.
I got a decent upper body workout, lifting, holding, and catching her, as well as working on my high-speed circular swirling technique. And it was very good for my heart. And soul…
Here’s a picture of them enjoying the pool. I was the photographer this time. I expect my participation to be documented in future pool explorations (of which I hope the next is soon).
Teagan (on left) and Rachel (on right). Both very happy.
When my youngest nephew Gray (now 20) was born I looked after his two older siblings (5 and almost 3) for the first few weeks while my sister was getting settled in with a new baby. Our most joyful outings were to the pool– there no one was sad or grumpy or tired or bored. We splashed and played and hung out and ate snacks and enjoyed the water and each other. Honestly, is there anything better?
This winter season, if you’re feeling in need of a pick-me-up, borrow a kid or a friend or take yourself to a pool. Splash around. Do a handstand underwater. See how long you can hold your breath. Dive for random objects thrown to the bottom. Oh, and don’t forget to bring snacks and fluffy towels, too.
Well, it’s happened again– we are falling back (as opposed to springing forward) in North America. For me, falling back is great, as I love the feeling of having another hour to sleep, loll, and in this case, think about what to write for the blog.
Sometimes, however, a picture (or in this case, a video) is worth more than words. If any of you, dear readers, are having trouble with falling back today, I’ve found the perfect assistance, courtesy of Facebook:
CW: mention of some extreme (but real) health injustices and harm done to people and groups because of it.
This past week was a full-service one for me: after two days of teaching, I flew from Boston to Portland, Oregon for the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities meeting. This is a group of medical professionals, including clinicians, directors of programs, patients’ rights lawyers, clinical ethicists working in hospitals, researchers, and a smattering of philosophers.
I was there to give a talk on GLP-1 (weight-loss) drugs and the complexity of hunger. This is one of two health ethics projects my friend Norah and I are working on these days. More on that in another blog post.
Here are some of the fascinating and important topics people are working on that I Iearned more about:
pregnancy in prison, and the practice of shackling pregnant people during labor and childbirth
how ranking hospitals (e.g. US News rankings) can affect medical policies around managing cancer care
what we can learn from our dogs about euthanasia and end-of-life care for ourselves and our human loved ones
what’s so special about cancer: opioid prescribing for pain and the need for improved and more consistent guidelines across diagnoses
I met lots of interesting and nice people (including a bunch who live in the Boston area) and also saw some colleagues I hadn’t run into in a long time. It was great to see bioethicist Peggy Battin, who is famous for her work on assisted suicide, among many other things. She gave a powerful TED talk in 2014 on her experiences around her husband Brooke’s death five years after he suffered a broken neck in a bike accident. I regularly show this to my students in my Contemporary Moral Problems class during our module on end-of-life ethical issues.
Because we were in Portland, Norah and I had to sneak away from the conference for a couple of hours to go to the Portland Japanese Garden. We were treated to fall colors as well as the varied shades of green in the moss and leaves.
Orange and yellow leaves.Reddish-oranges and greens.Curved tree with yellows and green.
There was a bridge/walkway over and around a pond with large and beautiful fish, several other water features, and a lovely zen garden, carpeted with white Canadian rocks.
fish of many colorsA bamboo and stone water feature.A zen garden.
You may be wondering, what about that llama? Yes, there was a llama– Caesar, the no-drama llama, a prominent Portland celebrity, visited the conference on Friday for a meet-and-greet and photo ops. If you want a moment of respite from our harsh world, look at the video of Caesar here.
Norah and I of course got our pictures taken with Caesar. He is sweet and calm and oh so fluffy!
Me and CaesarNorah, Caesar and me
Everyone gets tired occasionally, especially when they’re the object of so much attention. Caesar is capable of extraordinary ranges of emotion, and his yawn is a sight to see.
Yawning or singing? You had to be there to know for sure.
Despite two cross-country flights, I am feeling refreshed and energized, ready to continue my research work, pursue more fall nature, and keep an eye our for fluffy animal encounters.
Readers, how was your week? Did you get to pet any nice creatures? Stroll through nature? Expand your mental horizons? I’d love to hear from you.
