New pawns in the obesity war:

Pregnant women!

According to this article that appeared on CNN.com today, the Institute of Medicine is planning to review its suggested guidelines for how much weight a woman should gain during pregnancy, and is expected to decrease the recommended amounts. The current [stupid] guidelines recommend that women with a "normal" BMI should gain 25-35 pounds during pregnancy, while "obese" women should only gain 15, and underweight women should gain 40.

How they came up with these specific numbers that are supposed to apply to all women everywhere, regardless of how tall they are or how their bodies are composed or how big their babies are, is beyond me. But the new proposal is likely to be even more idiotic. Apparently women gaining too much weight during pregnancy "...has been one factor in causing the epidemic of overweight and obesity that we see in our country" [oh, the horror!]. This is according to "doctors who say heavy moms are gaining too much weight and the current recommendations do not factor in the country's obesity epidemic." No mention of who these doctors are or whether they are basing their complaints on anything other than their own anecdotal impressions, but no matter. Pregnant women are a segment of society that used to be left alone (relatively speaking) as far as fat phobia was concerned, and we can't possibly let this whole group of people not be hassled about being fat! We must guilt women into going on diets when they're pregnant, even if it harms their babies! We can't let fat people gain weight and not give them shit about it!

One assface, Dr. Patrick Catalano of Case Western Reserve University, actually says that "an obese woman has nutrients stored away and doesn't need to gain weight to provide for the baby." Umm, maybe doctors don't have to take a lot of hard math classes in school, but you don't need a graphing calculator to figure out that in order for your weight to stay the same while you have a fetus, placenta, and all that other baby stuff growing inside of you, that means you will actually have to lose some of your own body weight during the pregnancy... duh... which means going on a diet while pregnant... which I really hope this guy is not advocating... Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he might have meant that "obese" women don't need to gain any weight in addition to the weight of the baby and stuff. If that's what he meant, then CNN needs to issue a clarification! Right away! So that no fat pregnant women start going on diets and cause harm to their babies!

I'll just sit here and hold my breath waiting for them to post that clarification...