Quick Hit: The Men Who Made Us Fat

This documentary can be found in 12 parts on Youtube, and it's an interesting romp through recent food history, from Nixon's agricultural policies to Sunny Delight turning a child orange.

In three episodes it looks at the rise of fast food chains and the impact of high fructose corn syrup, the economics and behavioural psychology of 'super-sized' portions plus the invention of snacking, and the impact of food packaging, legislation and 'health' foods. There's a lovely degree of paranoia around businesses lobbying MEPs and MPs (and a reminder that Andrew Lansley, when looking for a way to reduce child obesity, sat down with the people marketing, selling and profiting from unhealthy food to discuss if they could possibly maybe see a way forward to cut their profits voluntarily), but also a level of recognition that there is economic logic behind enticing people to buy more food that they like.  Some of the interviews with people who were in the industry thirty or forty years ago were fascinating - a discussion with a farmer in Indiana about the change to over-producing corn, and chatting with the man who introduced counter service in the UK.

Mostly, watching it made me very hungry.

In terms of fat-shaming, it skirted the edges a lot.  In its defence: there was a whole section on the neurological and biochemical responses to food - that sugar can stop people feeling full, that people don't notice if portion sizes are gradually increased, that our brains reward us more for eating sugar and fatty food, that we are duped by marketing etc.   (Consumers are portrayed to an extent as being entirely motivated by biological motivations for sugar and shiny packaging - but that is pretty much as they tend to be seen by sciences and economics anyway)

While 'being obese' is presented as a universal negative, the whole series is dedicated to unpicking structural causes and patterns in food production and marketing as the cause, and there is a lot of talk of people who are trying to eat healthily and lose weight, but are unable to do so due to the food industry itself.  A couple of interviewees do start to head off into individual-blame territory, and are redirected.  Despite that, there were a hell of a lot of stock shots of walking headless bodies

Conclusion: Nice enough basic documentary series, interesting interviews, some of the footage was overused enough to irritate when it was watched as a block rather than (as I suspect was intended) with a week between episodes.

On Dysphoria - Part 1

Occasionally, my otherwise diverse blogroll (what, you don't call my collection of politics, queer politics, queer culture and feminist politics diverse?) comes together in a strange synchronicity of posts around a particular subject. Today, that happened to be around dysphoria.



Dysphoria is a terribly technical word, which is used in a couple of ways in relation to trans* people. The internet tells me that it specifically means "an unease or dissatisfaction with circumstances" and "gender dysphoria" is one of the medical terms applied to people I prefer to think of as magically gendered. There is also a term - dysmorphia - for a psychological condition in which a person dislikes or is concerned about one or more of their physical features. In some cases, I've seen people refer to 'gender dysmorphia' when talking about trans* people's discomfort with parts of their anatomy but generally dysphoria is used instead, possibly because there is a specific identified underlying cause.

In less medically precise circles (and in my own usage), 'dysphoria' is an umbrella term which covers the wide-ranging issues - anxiety, depression, body issues, general squick - around being trans and walking around with a body which doesn't quite seem to fit. There are both internal and external aspects to this. Internally, there is the sense of my body not being appropriate for the things I want to do with it and the discomfort of the mismatch with my own mental image of my self. Externally, there are all the issues caused by interacting with the world, and the way that people generally interpret the gender cues of my body and mannerisms (let's face it, I'm effeminate as hell). Basically - one set of issues make me uncomfortable when I'm on my own, the other makes me uncomfortable with other people. Sometimes (frequently) I just can't win.

But I still feel a bit strange identifying my reactions as 'dysphoria'. Possibly it is due to the pathologising effect of the word - as if it's not enough that I feel uncomfortable, but that discomfort must also be categorised and remembered and filed away for proof that I am trans enough. Maybe if I get enough dysphoria points I can send away for free hormones? Or a badge?

F was certainly fast enough in being able to point out the areas in which my reactions are consistently gender-related discomfort (though while applying the term to my experiences, she tends to use the less ominous 'body squick' herself). Maybe it's a result of how slowly and unsteadily I acquired my dysphoria that I tend to only really notice it in hindsight.

For all the potential problems around the concept of 'dysphoria' - the pathologisation of my reactions and the way that they can be used as a yardstick against ridiculous standards - the term is helpful in explaining my reactions to myself, at least. I come across discussions online about levels of dysphoria, methods of dealing with it, ways to play it up to make a medical professional actually pay attention...but not very much about the experience of it, the way it changes shape over time or the way people's relationship with it as a concept. It is framed as a reaction - a way of interacting with a body and with the world. If I am going to use it as an explanation though I would rather consider it as a thing in-itself, which has come into the world and affects my relationships and which I can get to know and interact with in a multitude of ways.

I think that it is only by treating the 'reaction' as an entity in itself that it becomes something which can be studied, the origins examined and - hopefully - a level of comfort with it can be reached.