I just left a comment on a BoingBoing post.
The post (about some hugely calorific dish at Outback Steakhouse): http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/11/worst-food-in-americ.html
The comment (not sure if it’ll be approved, so I can’t yet link it directly):
I’m thinking you guys (the creators of BoingBoing) probably don’t care, because you are hip and probably all thin, cool type people (whether this is because you count calories/diet, I do not know).
But you must know that there is a significant membership of yours, or passive readers of yours who are fat, and who, further, do not diet, and have no interest in doing so, nor in counting calories.
Surely a blog as cool as yours has noticed the growing national awareness of the fat acceptance movement recently. And the growing numbers of studies coming out that do not attribute fatness to laziness or other synonyms, or necessarily to one’s diet.
We (as I am one of these people) are probably tired of your posts like these, where you talk about calories, which leads to talking about eating patterns and dieting and healthiness. Why? Because I think we have had enough of those sorts of discussions in public fora.
I’m not discounting the great discussion of foods (that sound sometimes interesting and sometimes not) that also derives from this original post, but I think it’s possible to get there via other means, and not just decrying how bad for you a particular food is.
Just a datapoint for you. I don’t wish a flamewar and I’m not trying to troll, just trying to give you honest feedback about your post topics.
Anyhow. Onward.
Ta. I figured the most sensible response I saw as of last night was the reader who pointed out that labeling this the worst dish ever was sort of misleading, since (a) it was meant to be shared among several people who (b) probably didn’t eat it on a daily basis.
The only one of the boingers I know much about is Doctorow, who is definitely a bit of a diet fanatic, but not to blame for this particular article (he’s busy being a new dad, and anyway I think his caloric bugaboo is high-fructose coorn syrup).
Although I find your comment (and the subsequent discussion on BB) interesting, I respectfully disagree with you. I am a fat person, and although I am dieting, I respect the choice of others not to diet. I found the BB post interesting, actually, because of the extreme portrayed in that one dish. It’s not about whether a fat person should feel bad for eating the Aussie fries – either they have internalized guilt about eating, or they don’t – it’s about the fact that Outback has even created such a dish. I saw the post more as corporate commentary than fat-people commentary.
The only “you probably shouldn’t eat this” element I saw in the post was the picture, which makes the dish look quite unappetizing. Then again, that’s how it looks in real life, I’m sure – the menu picture has been tarted up by food artists. So the picture is merely educational about whether you will be eating something visually appealing, rather than saying anything about the person eating it.
Meredith, that’s cool. Different people read things different ways. Also, be aware that I tend to choose tactically different situations than I used to. I’ve found that when a thread goes totally hyperbolic (wherever that may be), I stand less of a chance of being listened to than when I leave feedback of this sort on a more normal, even-keeled discussion.
There is still an aura of whackjobbery when one challenges what’s usually a basic assumption for folks (like these days, challenging the assumption that calories == fat), but in less fraught discussion, there’s a greater chance of getting through to the folks (usually authors and moderators) who might be inclined to listen and have my opinion inform their future posts.