Hunger and the Economy—the Far-reaching Effects of Child Hunger

Looking back on the summer of 09 in my later years, I will most likely remember it as being the summer of Michael Jackson, rain, and babies.

Having disappeared to FL to welcome my niece into the world, and then to TX for work – because what other reason would I go to Texas in July, next week I will be in CT with my best friend to meet her son.  Speaking to her on the phone, she mentioned how it was getting on her nerves that lately when people meet her son Benjamin Luke they keep asking,

Are you a Star Wars Fan?

Why?

Think about it?

She asked me.  I thought about it.  Moments went by.  Then I asked,

Why?

Obie Wan Kanobie and Luke Skywalker

Seriously?

I could have sat there for a million years and never would have put that together.  It’s not like she named her kid Han Luke! Maybe you are the Star Wars fan if that’s the first thing you think of when you hear Benjamin Luke.  And yes, I spelled Obie Wan phonetically so if it’s wrong forgive me.

I’m very excited to meet baby Ben next week.  All these babies, made reading this all the more sad to me.

A new report—Child Food Insecurity: The Economic Impact on Our Nation—focuses on the impact of food insecurity and hunger on child health, growth, and development, and also details the economic effect of child hunger in America. The results may surprise you.

The report’s author, John Cook, Ph.D., of the Boston Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine, a nationally-recognized expert on child hunger, says that there are lifelong consequences of child food insecurity: “The impact of child hunger is more far reaching than one might anticipate. Child food insecurity creates billions of dollars in costs to our society. Child hunger affects a child’s health, education, and job readiness.”

The study explains the long term impact child hunger can have on the American economy:

• Child hunger first causes health problems. Hungry children are sick more often, and are more likely to suffer physical, emotional, and developmental impairment.
• Child hunger then leads to educational problems. Under-nutrition before the age of three changes the neurological architecture of the brain and central nervous system, harming a child’s ability to learn. Hungry children have lower academic achievement.
• Ultimately, child hunger leads to workforce and job readiness problems. Adults who experienced hunger as children are not well-prepared mentally, emotionally, physically, or socially to perform in a work environment.

I am very lucky to have all these new happy and healthy babies in my life.

CLICK HERE to donate to Feeding America in celebration of Benjamin Luke and my new neice, Rose and the kids in your life.

Since starting White Girl With a Fat Ass a total of $3067 has been raised for Feeding America. The Nation’s Largest Foodbank.

Over the last 24 hours, we raised enough money between your generous donations and the matching grants to provide 3,500 meals for those in need. Thank you all for your love and support.  Together we will save the world, one fat ass at a time.

One in every eight Americans is struggling with hunger. If you would like to see those that you have helped, please CLICK HERE FOR REAL STORIES from  Feeding America.

I remember recently all the fuss that surrounded Oprah Winfrey’s coming out and talking about her weight gain. I remember one article headline that stated, “How did I let this happen again?” On the one hand, it is kind of hard to feel sorry for a who-the-hell-knows-onaire but I certainly empathize. This is one of the harder things I’ve ever had to do. But it is time for me to Show and Tell. Obviously, there are much worse things in this life and babies won’t die, but having to write on this blog of all places that I’ve gained half of the weight I lost back is fundamentally embarrassing.

After a long winter of writing my screenplay, drinking, and (ironically) power dating, I have gained back 15 pounds of the 30 lost during BareAss 2008. I have thusly changed the total on the sidebar. That hurt. I obviously had an inkling that this had happened. Tight pants and chub rub do not lie. However, I was still surprised when I went to the doctor this week for my yearly that I had gained back this much. Now on the upside, I am still the happiest I have ever been in my life with who I am and how I look. Mostly because of this success of this blog, both in raising money for Feeding America and through the strengths I found in myself during BareAss 2008. But, the extra weight is aggravating a medical condition I have so it’s time to shake things up. My doctor put the whole thing in a very positive light, “You lost the weight before, so the good thing is you know you can do it again.”

When I had just that moment been, “I’ve lost this weight before, I’m so stupid, now I have to do it all again.” But ultimately she is right. I have lost this weight before and let’s take a moment to examine the difference between what I was doing before Before and Now.

Before:

• Going to the gym
• Eating really healthy
• Keeping a food journal
• Raising money for Feeding America – The Nation’s Largest Foodbank
• Writing in WGWaFA regularly

Now:

• Gym? Is that the place with all the weights? But it’s so cold out and nice and warm on my couch.
• It’s not a proper meal unless it’s covered in cheese.
• Is keeping a food journal the same as scanning your bar tab at last call in disbelief?
• Raising a glass or two, or five, to get through a first date.
• Writing my screenplay- which for some reason for me means ordering take out, replacing breakfast with coffee, and inhaling chocolate to quell the tiny voice in my head that keeps insisting this is the worst piece of crap anyone has ever typed into a computer.

And thus 15 pounds gained back. And I empathize with Oprah. The thing that immediately jumps out at me when comparing my Before and Now is my abundant consumption of alcohol. I can blame it on winter blues, or increased dating (where sometimes the only good thing is the free drinks), or the fact that I simply like to go watch the Sox and drink beers. But besides gaining back half my weight, it has also lead to some fairly poor decision making recently.

This week I’ve started introducing fruits and veggies back into my daily routine. I’ve been going back to the gym. And most importantly I’ve finished rewriting my screenplay. That last point makes me extremely happy! So here goes…

I am not going to drink alcohol again until May 15^th! Why May 15^th? Besides being a good way to kick my Fat Ass into high gear, and to honor the 15 pounds I have gained (and know I can lose) I am going to see MEL & EL: SHOW AND TELL on May 15^th.

Ars Nova presents the World Premiere of MEL & EL: SHOW AND TELL, a new comedy with music written and performed by Melanie Adelman and Ellie Dvorkin, real life best friends who have known each other since they were 12 years old. Best described as a musical Laverne & Shirley-meets-Sex & the City, Mel & El are a riotously funny duo who have quickly become a “downtown” cult phenomenon through appearances at NYMF, Gotham Comedy Club, Comix, The Zipper, Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad, Homo Comicus, here! TV’s Busted, and an acclaimed one-year run at The Duplex with their first show, Mel & El: This Show Rhymes.  Directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel, MEL & EL: SHOW AND TELL begins previews May 6 at Ars Nova. Opening night is set for May 15.

From the day they met in advanced jazz class, Mel & El have been inseparable.  In MEL & EL: SHOW AND TELL, the acclaimed cabaret-meets-musical theater duo employ their sharp wit, infectious songwriting and unparalleled stage chemistry to escape meddling mothers, wedding mania, ticking biological clocks and much more. Join the eighties fab / nineties glitz / aughts pop pair as they uncover and untangle their true selves.

MEL & EL: SHOW AND TELL features music by Patrick Spencer Bodd, musical direction by Jaspaer Grant, costumes by Bobby Tilley, lighting by Jason Lyons, set by Tim Mackabee, sound design by Walter Trarbach, choreography by Wendy Seyb and production stage management by Molly Eustis.

MEL & EL: SHOW AND TELL runs May 6 – 30, Tuesday – Saturday at 8PM. Ars Nova is located at 511 West 54th Street (just west of 10th Ave. — accessible from C, E, to 50th Street, N, R, Q, W to 57th Street, or 1, 9 to Columbus Circle). Tickets are $25, available at 212-352-3101 or www.arsnovanyc.com

How can you support me in this quest dear faithful readers? You can comment below with your own motivating suggestions. You can CLICK HERE TO DONATE to Feeding America who presently are in a Fresh Food Emergency. Right now EVERY $1 YOU GIVE WILL HELP PROVIDE 10 POUNDS OF FOOD FOR FAMILIES IN NEED.

Also, between now and May 15^th, if you DONATE to Feeding America, you can WIN A FREE TICKET to MEL&EL: SHOW AND TELL on May 15^th That’s right. I’ve got an extra ticket and it is YOURS. Just donate and email me at wgwafa@gmail.com to let me know (I’ll trust your word) and you could go to see the show for free. A ticket to Mel &EL and two free drinks on me!! How can you beat that? If you can’t donate, you can help by spreading the word around to your friends and family.And if you don’t live in NYC, donate because you are a good person and I will make sure to find a wicked awesome out-of-towner prize.

Check back in often because I will be blogging regularly between now and May 15^th. It may not sound like a long time to you, but even getting through this first uber nice weekend in the city without a cold one is going to be tough. Is it May 15^th yet?  But if you aren’t free on May 15th, donation or no, you should check out Mel&El’s show!!  Info below.

I didn’t meant for that last sentence to rhyme like that.  But it’s such a good show!!! I got excited.

This Martin Luther King Day, the day before a new administration captured the attention of not only America but the world, I found myself embarking on the final steps of momentous journey. Or to say it straight, I trekked through the snow to the East Village to have a photo of my ass taken.  For the next month, the Bare Ass 2008! Results will appear under Pages on the sidebar as a password protected page.

Since then I found myself completely unable to write about the experience.  It wasn’t so much fear, but once the time arrived and I wasn’t sure how to proceed.  It is a quite a lot to sit with, to have a CD full of naked pictures of yourself in your bag and to know that after all that has happened this year  I had to post one of them here. 

 

The week going into the ‘Ass Shot’ as my photographer Francine nicknamed it, I started to freak out.  First about the obvious things:

 

A.      Everyone was going to see my bare ass.

B.      Anybody that I meet from this point on in my life may Google me, find this site, and think I’m insane.  Which isn’t too far from the truth.

C.      Even though I said that this blog was all about letting go of body issues, and loving myself as I am, I am way to fat to do this.

 

Then came the more random thoughts, which somehow freaked me out more:

 

A.      The mark from where I burned my ass on the heat pipe is still visible.

B.      In the winter my skin breaks out from dryness… everywhere. 

C.      I was going to have to see my bare ass. 

 

I then spent the next few days performing more ass grooming than I ever have in my life.  Don’t get dirty on me now kids, by that I mean exfoliating scrubs, vitamin E for my heat pipe scar, lotions for the dry skin on my back, butt, legs.  I also have a lot of freckles all over my back from years of reckless frolicking in the summer sun that make me look like a speckled mackerel.  And it is January so I am white as a ghost.  But I decided to keep my priorities straight and focus my wigging out on my ass.  Taking a naked picture of the part of the body that you have always been the most self-conscious about should include the side benefit of being able to let all the twenty million other things you hate about your body go. 

 

On the way over, walking through the snowy East Village I suddenly became very serene about the whole thing.  I am what I am. This is what I look like and there is nothing wrong with that.  I will continue to strive towards a healthier body and making better lifestyle choices but there is no ideal version of myself that I have to smoosh my figure into before I can be happy.  This picture is happening today, now, and that is good. Because one way or another life is now.   I spoke to a friend on the way over and when we ended the conversation she said,

 

“Happy Ass Photo!”  

 

And it was.  Francine was a total doll and the whole afternoon felt like a professional shoot in her home studio. She is an amazing artist and I encourage you to check out her website.   For all my actor friends she does headshots too.  We picked out fabrics and talked about various poses and practiced before starting the real session.  Here’s me trying one out on the couch, pants still on. 

 

 

 

 

Then came the real deal.  Did I want to get down to my undies and try a few then first to ease into it?  I decided No.  I got straight down to my birthday suit, but clung to the fabric we were using like a lifejacket.  However, about an hour later I was totally over any feelings of shame that I had.  It was a wild experience to just be there, exposed, and have to ease into my own body.  But what really struck me was reviewing all the photos to pick out what I might want to use.  For lack of a more eloquent phrase, it was the weirdest thing ever.  There was a time when I never could have imagined scrolling through countless photos of my naked self without dropping dead from shame.  Although, I then became obsessed about this pooch of back fat by my upper arm.  Apparently my brain does not know how to fully function without something negative to focus in on.   

  

One of my other favorite moments is when Francine got upset after we finished because she forgot the joke she had planned to say while we were taking pictures.

 

What was the joke?

When we were shooting I was going to say…  “SAY CHEESE!” 

 

So that is it.  Bare Ass 2008! has come to a close.  You can check out the results of the year, including the tasteful heiney shot on the Bare Ass 2008! Results password protected page. 

 

 

• THE PASSWORD IS: bareass    All one word. All lowercase.

 

 

It is there for you to see but only if you want.  I did this in consideration of my good friend Jason. One of the first people to donate to Bare Ass 2008! his donation came with the rider ‘But I don’t want to see your ass!’

 

I’m not sure exactly what 2009 is going to bring.  But I thought it very good timing to receive this message from Feeding America.  If you are inspired by my journey, please still Donate to my Charity Badge  or below is a great way to start a journey of your own while helping others in need. 

Give Back And Get Healthy With the Pound For Pound Challenge 
Feeding America, General Mills and The Biggest Loser have joined forces to support the Pound For Pound Challenge, which is helping Americans lose weight and providing hunger relief. There are three ways you can get involved:
 

• Pledge to lose weight and for every pound you lose by April 27, 2009, General Mills will donate 10 cents to Feeding America – enough to secure and distribute one pound of groceries to a local food bank.
• Mail in the Pound For Pound seals from specially-marked General Mills products. For every seal received by December 31, 2009, General Mills will donate 10 cents to Feeding America.
• Give now directly to Feeding America.

Through the Challenge, General Mills hopes to contribute $775,000 to Feeding America to help secure millions of pounds of groceries. You can learn more about this unique program here.