How about MISTER Piggy? How Trump Uses Expensive Doctors To Make Himself Look Less Porcine

By now, everyone knows the story of former Miss Universe Alicia Machado-- first explained at this blog in last June-- but the way Trump treated her was not unique to his attitude-- and actions-- towards women he did business with. He has a long, ugly history of discriminating against women who he didn't judge as attractive enough. This morning the L.A. Times reported that when Trump visited his golf course in Rancho Palos Verdes "the club’s managers went on alert. They scheduled the young, thin, pretty women on staff to work the clubhouse restaurant-- because when Trump saw less-attractive women working at his club, according to court records, he wanted them fired... Employees said several women quit or were fired because they were perceived as unattractive." Employees and ex-employees are still afraid to speak on the record about their experiences in fear of being sued by the suit-happy Trump, whose lawyers routinely terrorize anyone and everyone who tells the truth about him.

In their sworn declarations, some employees described how Trump, during his stays in Southern California, made inappropriate and patronizing statements to the women working for him.

On one visit, Trump saw “a young, attractive hostess working named Nicole ... and directed that she be brought to a place where he was meeting with a group of men,” former Trump restaurant manager Charles West said in his declaration.

“After this woman had been presented to him, Mr. Trump said to his guests something like, 'See, you don't have to go to Hollywood to find beautiful women,'” West said. “He also turned to Nicole and asked her, ‘Do you like Jewish men?’"

...Female employees said they faced additional pressures.

Strozier, the former catering director, said Vincent Stellio-- a former Trump bodyguard who had risen to become a Trump Organization vice president-- approached her in 2003 about an employee that Strozier thought was talented.

Stellio wanted the employee fired because she was overweight, Strozier said in her legal filing.

"Mr. Stellio told me to do this because 'Mr. Trump doesn't like fat people' and that he would not like seeing [the employee] when he was on the premises,” wrote Strozier, who said she refused the request. (Stellio died in 2010.)

A year later, Mike van der Goes-- a golf pro who had been promoted to be Trump National’s general manager-- made a similar request to fire the same overweight employee, Strozier said.

“Mr. van der Goes told me that he wanted me to do this because of [the employee's] appearance and the fact that Mr. Trump didn't like people that looked like her,” Strozier wrote.

When Strozier protested, Van der Goes returned a week later “and announced he had a plan of hiding [the employee] whenever Mr. Trump was on the premises,” Strozier wrote.

West, who worked as a restaurant manager at the club until 2008, wrote that Van der Goes ordered him “to hire young, attractive women to be hostesses.” West also said Van der Goes insisted that he “would need to meet all such job applicants first to determine if they were sufficiently pretty."

Even Trump supporters find his behavior towards women repulsive

Conservative Democrat Claire McCaskill (MO) tried turning the tables on Trump Wednesday with some reverse fat shaming, jokingly asking for "a public daily weigh-in" for the obese Trump. At the debate Monday he may have made fun of some unnamed 400 pound hacker on a bed he knows-- a governor?-- but when Trump was barking about how the extremely beautiful and dignified Alicia Mercado was too fat and ate too much, he was getting cosmetic surgery done regularly to make himself appear younger and less of a fat slob on a Chris Christie level of rotundity.



Remember the big commotion when child molester Mark Foley went to some Trumpist hate rally in Ft Lauderdale, Florida in August and sat right behind Trump? The two of them told the media afterwards that they are dear old friends. Wonder how that happened? Aside from the two both being involved with Palm Beach real estate, Trump's cosmetic surgeon was celebrated dermatologist-to-the-rich-and-famous Layne Nisenbaum of Island Dermatology and Laser in Palm Beach, Foley's long time lover. A top executive at the firm told us that Trump used Nisenbaum for a procedure called the Venus Freeze, which he described as a non-invasive anti-aging treatment that is meant to "reduce circumference," while improving cellulite, controlling weight, tightening skin and reducing wrinkles. "He was also getting botox injections every 6 to 8 months, as well as laser resurfacing and he had artificial fat filler under his lips to make his mouth droop less and make his multiple chins less apparent," the petrified-of-being-sued former executive at the now shuttered company told us under condition of strict anonymity.

UPDATE: It's Ted Lieu's District

At the very end of Ted Lieu's district, which starts up north in Agoura Hills and Malibu, is Rancho Palos Verdes and at the end of Rancho Palos Verdes is the Trump National Golf Club (formerly Ocean Trails Golf Club). There's a great view of Catalina Island and there should be-- it was the most expensive golf course ever constructed. As with every property Trump ever got involved with, he was quickly suing everyone in sight, including the very Republican city of Rancho Palos Verdes (for $100 million). One city official, speaking anonymously-- and in fear of being sued by... guess who-- told me that the "worst thing to have ever happened to this city was Donald Trump. We were due to get the PGA Grand Slam until he started spouting all his racist crap."

Ted Lieu isn't a fan of Trump either. A few minutes ago, he told us that "Trump's fat shaming, racist comments about Ms. Alicia Machado are categorically deplorable. Trump's latest attack of a private citizen sadly joins a laundry list of venal verbal assaults that he has made during his campaign for the highest office in the land. By attacking an Indiana judge, a Gold Star family, and now Ms. Machado, Trump has clearly demonstrated that the content of his character is severely lacking and that he has no business running for President, let alone actually serving in the Oval Office. This is further evidence that, in his heart, Donald Trump is a cruel person." Congressman Lieu is voting for Hillary Clinton.

Weight Watch: Packing a few extra pounds? It may mean you've got a better shot at maintaining your marbles

"Patients were an average 55 years old and 45,507 of them developed dementia over an average of nine years. The risk of dementia fell steadily as their weight rose, the researchers found."

-- from "Being fat in middle age reduces risk
of developing dementia, researchers say"

by Ken

A bit of the way into her report, Washington Post reporter Daniela Deane makes the point that "obesity levels, like dementia levels, are soaring worldwide." But according to the study that's the subject of Daniela's report, contrary to what you might assume, the two are not traveling on parallel tracks.

Because, as the prestigious scientific journal The Lancet is reporting: "A surprising study contradicting all previous research found that being fat in middle age appears to cut the risk of developing dementia rather than increase it."

Yes, you read that right.

A study of two million people found that the underweight were far more likely to develop dementia, a growing problem among the elderly in the Western world.

Underweight people had a 34 percent higher risk of developing dementia than those of a normal weight, the study found, while the very obese had a 29 percent lower risk of becoming forgetful and confused and showing other signs of senility.

And the study says it right there in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology Journal, where it has been published.

These findings, Daniela notes, "fl[y] in the face of previous smaller studies -- and much modern health advice -- that what is good for the heart is also good for the head." But the new study, says its leader, Nawab Qizilbash of Oxon Epidemiology, "overshadows those [previous studies] by orders of magnitude. We show completely the opposite," he told the Times of London. "We did a lot of analysis to see if we could explain it, but it just seems to persist. We couldn't get rid of it, so we're left with this apparent protective effect."

The next step, the researchers say, assuming that "other studies confirm the findings," "would be to examine if people who eat more unknowingly take in dementia-fighting nutrients in the extra food they consume." Or at any rate to try to figure out what these unexpected numbers might mean in terms of body function.


DON'T GET CARRIED AWAY, THOUGH

There is, not surprisingly, a disclaimer attached to the findings, straight from the mouth of the man who oversaw the study, Nawal Qizilbash, who warned --

that being overweight or obese brings with it a much higher risk of death from any cause and a higher risk of stroke and other diseases.

“So even if there is a protective effect against dementia from being overweight or obese, you’re not living long enough to benefit from it,” Qizilbash was quoted as saying by the Times.

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Great Christina offers some really thought-provoking insights into issues of body weight and physical attractiveness

"What kind of movement claims to be about empowerment... but disavows people for making their own choices about their bodies?"

-- Greta Christina, in an AlterNet essay, "Caught Between Fat and Thin: The Pounds Come Off, But the Label Stays"

by Ken

For all the drivel one can find online, there are writers scattered about who are offering genuinely thoughtful comment on subjects of real importance to most of us. In this category I place Greta Christina, who tackles some of the most delicate personal issues. Now she's written for AlterNet a piece that I recommend without reservation to anyone who's concerned with issues of body weight and image and society's ideas of physical attractiveness or mere acceptability: "Caught Between Fat and Thin: The Pounds Come Off, But the Label Stays."

Greta has written a good deal about her struggle with her weight, having been "for years . . . an ardent advocate of the fat acceptance movement":

I actively resisted the idea that there was any point whatsoever to losing weight. I believed that medical statistics on the health effects of obesity were exaggerated at best, part of the cultural conspiracy to make women hate their bodies at worst. I was convinced that I could be just as healthy at 200 pounds (and with the eating and exercise habits that kept me at 200 pounds) as I would be with less weight. And I was convinced that losing weight never, ever worked... or at least, that it worked so rarely it wasn't worth trying--if there was even any reason for trying.

And then a knee that was already bad began getting worse, and she decided that, given a choice between losing mobility and losing weight, the weight would have to go."

She is, by the way, unhesitating in describing herself as "fat," even now when she isn't. ("I'm always going to be a fat woman. Don't get me wrong. At five foot three and 135 pounds, I am not, by any useful definition of the word, fat. But I have been fat.")

I still see the world as a fat person. My perceptions of myself, and of society, and of how society views fatness and bodies and health, have been profoundly shaped by my years of being fat in ways that are never going to change. And while I have huge disagreements with the fat acceptance movement -- especially with its more extreme denialist edges -- I still think many of its ideas are important, and perceptive, and entirely fair. I am still very much shaped by FA, and I would like to think of myself as an ally of the movement, and even as a member of it.

It's just that some of its members don't feel the same way about me, or about other fat people who choose to lose weight.

She remains, she explains, "hyper-conscious of anti-fat hostility, contempt, and discrimination."

When I hear mocking or insulting comments about fat people, I stand up for them. When I see rigid, internally contradictory, impossible- to-attain standards of physical beauty promoted in pop culture, I rant about it ad nauseum. When I hear about fat people being discriminated against in employment and medicine and so on, I get seriously ticked off. When folks call fat people "lazy slobs" and say that "as a society we should not look up to successful people who are fat. We should tell them we admire their acting or philanthropy, but look down on them for being lazy" (direct quotes from comments on my Facebook page, btw), I smack them down with every weapon in my rhetorical arsenal.

Paradoxically, she says, her long experience with fat acceptance has "actually given me essential tools for weight management." For one thing, she accepts that her body is "never going to be the culture's ideal."

For years, I projected all my body anxiety onto my weight. If I was unhappy with how I looked or felt, I assumed it was because I was fat. Period. And when I was in process of losing weight, even though I was healthier and happier with my body than I'd been in years, I was still very focused on trying to change, to reach my goal weight, to make my body different. Now that my weight is where I want it... I have to accept this body. With my thin hair, my veiny hands, my droopy breasts, my funky loose skin from the weight loss, my chronic middle- aged- lady health problems. I have to accept this body, and live with it, and love it.

She has, she says, "the understanding that the cultural ideal of physical beauty is not just insanely rigid and narrow, but internally contradictory and literally unattainable's now able to control her weight," and she understands that most everyone, "even fashion models and movie stars, is insecure about their bodies and their attractiveness." She explains how she has made peace with those notions, and how different it is to maintain control of her weight strictly for the sake of her health and physical well-being.

At the same time, she has been unpleasantly surprised by the degree of venom she receives from her former FA allies.

When I first started blogging about my weight loss, I was met with a faceful of extremist denialism, concern trolling, and outright hostility from many FA advocates, in both blog comments and private emails. The health benefits of successful weight loss were denied. The extremist attitudes of many FA activists were denied. Connections between weight and health were denied, and medical researchers publicizing these connections were called "crusaders." I was told that all diets fail everyone. I was told that there was no way my weight loss would work in the long run; that I might succeed in losing the weight initially, but would almost certainly fail to keep it off over time.

All of that and a good deal more. And her attackers seemed at all concerned with the health concern, her steadily declining mobility, that finally drove her to try to lose the weight. That --

was met with a callous, trivializing dismissal that I still find shocking. Many FA advocates were passionately concerned about the quality of life I might lose if I counted calories or stopped eating chocolate bars every day. But when it came to the quality of life I might lose if I could no longer dance, climb hills, climb stairs, take long walks, walk at all? Eh. Whatever.

"What kind of movement claims to be about empowerment," she asks, "but disavows people for making their own choices about their bodies?" Along the way she offers a wealth of insights and surprises on the subject, arriving at the basic understanding:

I think we need a movement that advocates for treating people with dignity, equality, and respect, regardless of their size; a movement that resists the impossible cultural ideals of beauty; a movement that encourages fat people to love themselves and take care of themselves, regardless of whether they lose weight; a movement that speaks out for fat people's right to make their own choices about their bodies and their health.

But it needs to accept that not everyone is going to make the same choices. If the fat acceptance movement is going to advocate for fat people who don't choose to lose weight, it needs to be every bit as supportive of fat people who do.

Highly recommended.

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