You know that picture that has been in about a zillion places since about Thursday? This one:
I was surprised to find out that this is wrong. She's not Miss Alabama. According to a story on PJ Media, although she's clearly called Miss Alabama on that (sash?) she's wearing, she's not what we all thought.
See, we think Miss Alabama is the woman going to represent Alabama in the Miss America or Miss USA pageant. This woman, Sara Milliken, is the winner of the National American Miss Alabama pageant, which took place in late May. This is a different pageant and not the one that feeds into those others. To borrow the explanation:
National American Miss is a different sort of pageant, to say the least. The About page of the pageant’s website informs us that “NAM is a program based on the foundational principle of fostering positive self-image by enhancing natural beauty within.” It adds that the “program [is] centered around helping young ladies grow and expand their ideas about who they are and what they want to achieve. We want every girl to realize that she truly can take hold of her dreams and make them real!”
Which is fine; whatever floats their boats. It strikes me as what we used to call "special education" and now seems to be called "the short bus" but in a different domain. It's wonderful that the National American Miss folks aren't pushing chopping off body parts or doing the "add-a-dick-to-me" surgery (as Rush used to say).
For the record, this is the "real" Miss Alabama who will be going to the Miss America pageant, Diane Westhoven.
Like the PJ Media author, Chris Queen, I'm hesitant to criticize Libs of TikTok who has done a fantastic job of showing just how loony the Libs on TikTok are by re-posting their content word for word. Likewise, I don't want to criticize all the people who jumped on the train because it honestly does look like something we'd expect in this overly Woke-infected time we're living in. I had no idea there were multiple pageants like this, and I'd bet the vast majority of the people who jumped on the bandwagon of making fun of the first picture also thought she was going to the Miss America pageant, rather than being the short bus equivalent of a pageant.
Just seeing the first post does kinda feed the outrage machine. We expect stupid stories like some group thinking a woman the size of a Florida manatee should represent some state in a nationwide beauty contest. My reaction when I saw the first story was my usual, "what planet is this and how'd we get here?" I never thought it was different pageant. Which suggests we should try to be more careful consumers of news. Make sure it's what we think it is before we go open loop (geek talk for "out of control").
As for all the comments that Miss Milliken needs to stay away from food, I think it would be better if the National American Miss folks would address her blindingly obvious need for help with her metabolic disease and not just help her feel better about herself. A startlingly small percentage of people can get to be her size without a metabolic illness and those people can't lose that weight by following "eat less and move more." The backing for that statement could take hours.
It's very true about metabolic issues and their ties to obesity. I know one anorexic who weighs over 300lbs. Her doctors don't believe her, nobody in the medical fields believe her, and she can gain weight on just over 2100 calories... a week, with exercise.
ReplyDeleteAnd Type 2 Diabetes, sure, food can affect it but what drives the blood sugars up like crazy are stresses like disease, infection, job stress, doctors not listening to you and the like.
Thanks for the clearing that up. I too was fooled.
ReplyDelete>can't lose that weight by following "eat less and move more."
ReplyDeleteWe all know the laws of physics. If you can show someone who died of starvation with fat on their body...then I'll believe it. (I don't mean someone with a genetic defect, i.e. gigantism etc., I mean regular spoiled humans.)
>gain weight on just over 2100 calories... a week, with exercise
How is that physically possible? Wouldn't that be a superpower?
I can see a metabolic disease that gives a choice between obesity and malnutrition, but I'd think that in most cases a doctor-guided diet with supplements would do it.
Imagine how tough it must be for a dwarf to manage their weight. They have the same appetite with a lot less need.
Sorry to you fatties who think I'm callous. I'm pretty sure I'm wrong about it all anyway. I'm a lifelong fatty, currently (again) fighting off survival instincts to lose the jelly roll. I honestly expected medical science to get a grip on this by now. Until they do, it's fatty apologists vs. clueless aholes.
Laws of physics are unbreakable. I used to add a disclaimer for car commercials, but I haven't heard them talk like that anymore. Not hearing that may be because I reflexively hit the mute button.
DeleteThe point is that our bodies are adaptive systems that have many feedback and control systems and weight is far more complex than simply counting calories. As for dying of "starvation with fat on their body" while I have no data, I wouldn't doubt it happens. Our bodies obey the laws of thermodynamics, and like obeying the laws of gravity or electromagnetics, that has very, very little to do with weight.
The long term success rate of calorie restriction at keeping the weight off is a couple of percent. If you look at plots of weight vs. time it looks like classic feedback loops. You can blame the patient or suspect the theory behind the treatment.
Caloric burning all depends on one's metabolism. Some people have the metabolisms of shrews or ferrets, some have the metabolisms of sloths or koala bears.
DeleteI've known a 100lb female who had two children and returned to her 100lbs within weeks of giving births. She could also punish an all-you-can-eat buffet like nobody I've ever seen.
Metabolisms are based both on genetics and trauma. People who have been malnourished as children often have very weird metabolism as their bodies have been 'trained' to eck out the last miniscule drop of nutrition out of what little they got to eat, and that travels with them into adulthood.
Then there are the happy fat people who live to their 90's in their unhealthy bodies. Like my great grandfather on my mother's mother's side, my mother's mother, my mother, me...
Let me ask one of my favorite questions. How many calories per pound and where does that number come from?
DeleteThere are no published studies that confirm the usually quoted 3500 (or 3600) calories per pound. According to the researcher I heard talk about it.
I didn't think that post added up, but hadn't looked into it.
ReplyDeleteThere are lots more pageant groups than many people realize, many of which use similar if not the same contest structure and naming system.
Jonathan
So how about "Miss Maryland"?
ReplyDeleteShe's still the second ugliest in that lineup.
ReplyDeleteSecond ugliest?
DeleteSadly, I believe, it is brain washing young Ladies, to distract from natural order of beauty, particularly the targeting of The Divine Feminine, natural within all Woman, deifying ugliness/repulsiveness, 2+2=5, along with anything to undermine/subvert/destroy all that is Trad American, especially Trad Family, (predominately White but also any who could pose resistance to successful prosperity-science-engineering-industriousness etc, wreck what makes/gives us nice things, this insidious meddling, within the sphere of lives of good folks who just want to be simply-nicely left alone, aka K Strategist, the actual targeted individuals). Behind all of it, they give us... ultimate Global Domination Game. They can not conceptualize anything but, for they are special, top rank chosen ones, this justifies the means, we the people are in their way, indeed, yet they do not understand just how mean good folks get when their values are ruthlessly violated.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't "fooled", and posted the pageant's name in full, knowing full well it wasn't the feeder for "Miss America" nor "Miss World".
ReplyDeleteTheir pageant is nonetheless still broken, and she still looks like she won by eating all the other contestants.
Had this been the Miss Fat@$$ Pageant, I wouldn't have uttered a peep.
For anything else, when the swimsuit competition offers a real danger that the contestants could be harpooned by mistake, you've gone off the rails and over the Cliffs Of Insanity.
I didn't pay attention to your post because I was tired of the story by the time I saw it. Nothing personal.
DeleteDidn't take any offense.
DeleteNonetheless, this is just civilization, declining while you watch.
That could be "Miss Alabama BB-60," but the SoDaks are aesthetically pleasing.
ReplyDeleteSoDaks are more aesthetically pleasing than some of those women.
DeleteReference here
Right up there with the seditious gay Kenyan commie getting a Nobel prize.
ReplyDelete