I’ve tried to find an official statement from the editors at Marie Claire about the Maura Kelly debacle. So far I haven’t found anything on their website . All I found online was a comment on a Washington Post blog called “Celebritology” saying Marie Claire emailed them and called Kelly a “provocative blogger” (no kidding) and pointed to her apology.
Below is the comment I left on the Washington Post blog hoping the bloggers (not actually posing as journalists) might act more like ethical journalists in the future and check out some of the controversy about obesity and its risks. I’m reprinting it here in case any of you might be interested in the information I mentioned….to bolster your own arguements when this subject comes up in discussion.
Posted 10/30/10
“I fear you’re perpetuating some big assumptions and leaping to the very same uniformed conclusions Maura Kelly made(assuming her rant was not all about the illness of anorexia at work) when you write that Kelly’s true intention was to alert the culture about the dangers of obesity.
As the Co-Chair of the Academy for Eating Disorders (AED) “Health at Every Size” SIG, Vice President the Binge Eating Disorder Association (BEDA), and the founder and moderator of an online community (www.aweighout.com) that addresses issues related to emotional eating and the desperate dieting that’s often triggered by blogs like Kelly’s, as well as “Health at Every Size”, I’d highly encourage you to do some research about cause and effect and the true risks of obesity. Read the CDC’s corrected research about how few people actually die from obsesity (major news story–should be in your paper’s archives). Google the “Obesity Paradox” research. Read Dr. Linda Bacon’s Book, Health at Every Size; the Surprising Truth About your Weight. Read Glen Gaesser’s book, Big Fat Lies. Read the Brandeis University study released last week that says when it comes to delaying health declines as we age, how much you drink, smoke, and weigh are less important than social connections,the belief that you can control important aspects of your life, and physical exercise. Take at look at the large Canadian and Japanese Ministry studies released in the past couple of years that report on weight and longevity (I bet you’ll be amazed by the conclusions). Please, as a fellow blogger I ask that you not buy hook, line, and sinker, into the medical profession’s highly studied, acknowledged (and detrimental to the health of the majority) prejudice about overweight and obese people.”
ELLEN SHUMAN
______________________________
Ellen Shuman is a Life Coach who specializes in emotional and binge eating issues. She is the founder of A Weigh Out & Acoria Eating Disorder Treatment, Vice President of the Binge Eating Disorder Association (BEDA), and Co-Chair of the Academy for Eating Disorders Special Interest Group on “Health at Every Size”, ellen@aweighout.com
