Fat Pride Community: We're Being Scapegoated In Health Care Debate

nytimes.com:

Marilyn Wann is an author and weight diversity speaker in Northern California who has a message for anyone making judgments about her health based on her large physique. "The only thing anyone can accurately diagnose by looking at a fat person is their own level of stereotype and prejudice about fat," said Ms. Wann, a 43-year-old San Franciscan whose motto in life is also the title of her book: "Fat! So?"

Hers has been an oft-repeated message this summer and fall by members of the "fat pride" community, given that the nation is in the midst of a debate about health care. That debate has, sometimes awkwardly, focused its attention on the growing population of overweight and obese Americans with unambiguous overtones: fat people should lose weight, for the good of us all.

Read the whole story: nytimes.com

Comments

[jinsei]

The main problem is with children. What parents feed their children is the best indicator of whether obesity will occur at a later age. I think it's almost child abuse when I see toddlers drinking from Pepsi bottles, or fat little kids walking around with bags of chips or fast food. The best low-income social program that existed was the Wic program that taught mothers basic nutrition for their babies. My mom volunteered once and said it was frustratingly difficult to convince mothers not to overfeed their children. Unfortunately the program's funding was cut severely.

It comes down to this: if parents are obese and have bad eating habits, most likely their children will too. The solution is to stop the cycle!

[jinsei]

Can we at least agree that it is very insensitive and unhelpful to compare obesity to actual diseases like MS?

[BunnyX]

I passed your question on to my friend who has both. His reply was that he has managed to keep his MS under control (so far, knock on wood) with the assistance of his doctor and some incredibly expensive drugs, but has rarely managed to lose more than a couple of pounds and never kept them off. His personal experience is that obesity is a tougher opponent than MS. Furthermore, his opinion was that it was you who was being insensitive and unhelpful by your dismissive use of the words 'actual disease'.

So, on behalf of my friend, I say you can take your 'actual' word and put it somewhere that only you can see it.

[digeridoo2]

I am somewhat shocked to find that there is a fat pride community.

[ScoutandBuckGoodDogs]

You're on cra.ck if you tell me that it's the minority of obese are that way because of emotional issues. All you have to do is watch Discovery Health to put that myth to rest. Also, you just have to live in the world and know others who are the same way to also disprove your theory of the minority.

I say the minority is those who are obese b/c of legit medical ailments. Perhaps my comment was a bit to absolute in that it left out that tiny minority. However, yours doesn't sound "medical" either if it's a slow metabolism. Have you attempted creating a food/calorie to exercise output deficit? I think many of us who are prone to this problem have slow metabolisms. I can't get on-board that it's a medical problem. Now a thyroid problem is a medical problem... but how many do you know with this issue? I've only known a few.

[BunnyX]

I'm sure your random personal observations are FAR more valid that the scientific and medical studies I have posted below. I'm sure facts will go nowhere to disturb your unfounded beliefs. Who needs science when they have ignorance to keep them cozy?

As for your advice - keep it. Bottom line, you DON'T know me. You don't know what I've tried, how many doctors I've been to, how little (and how very healthy) I eat. You are determined to believe that somehow it's GOT to be my fault, so you make up stories as to how that can be true. It's not.

I can't dent that kind of cast-iron resolve to cast blame. What I can do is keep telling the truth so that maybe a very few open-minded people (clearly not you) may start to think a little differently about the people around them, and be slower to judge people based on their size.

[ScoutandBuckGoodDogs]

You've spent a lot of time trying to back up your argument. Good for you.

Listen, I've been LIVING in the land of the obese for MANY MANY years. You can shove your own "cast iron" resolve and place it in a dark fold. That's fantastic that you have science to back up why being obese is sometimes against everything someone tries. I never said that doesn't exist. I'm trying to tell YOU that I find it very difficult to believe that the majority of cases are beyond that person's control. All ya have to do is turn on Discovery Health or say, I don't know, pay attention and see that it's stories of health issues BECAUSE someone is obese that they're sick. Not the other way around.

Once you stop making excuses, life gets better. Trust.

Additionally, you're extracting things from comments people make that simply aren't present.

[BunnyX]

You are completely missing the point, like most of the people posting here who share your dislike of fat people. Let me spell it out for you.

1) Most fat people ARE healthy (see studies previously quoted)
2) It is almost superhumanly impossible for many fat people to lose weight (see studies previously quoted) while thin people do it with no effort.

So, here's the point - why should I have to? You (and many others) seem to take it as a given that every fat person NEEDS to lose weight.
It's such an article of faith that I'm starting to think of it as a religion - and like a religion, all the science in the world won't dent it. And if you find your television to be a better source of information than peer-reviewed research, that speaks more to your credibility that to what the reality is.

So tell me - I'm healthy and I can do everything I want to do, so why should I have to lose weight just because you don't like the way I look? Because, in the end, that's what it boils down to. There's no reason on earth for me as a healthy person to focus all MY energy and effort on losing weight, just to please YOU.

It's not about making excuses. It's about looking at the reality of it and leaving the excuses behind. I'm fat, it's no one's business but mine. and I don't have to apologize for it.

[BunnyX]

For those of you who feel so morally superior because you don't gain weight, go google this study.

In what was probably the seminal study on the issue, E.A. Sims, an obesity researcher in Vermont, enlisted a group of naturally lean prison inmates to willingly overeat their way into obesity in order to study the effects of the disease as separate from the genetic factors that cause it. Well, much to his dismay, he found that, despite their best efforts–which included eating 6-7,000 calories a day and refraining from all work and exercise–the prisoners struggled to add and then retain the requisite 25% to their weights, even though they were eating 200% of their previous intake. One particularly lean fellow could never gain more than twelve pounds (9% of his initial weight) after months of stuffing his face and lounging around in his striped pajamas.

[fairness4all]

That only suggests that some people can't GAIN weight. Where is the evidence suggesting that people who cut calories can't LOSE weight?

[BunnyX]

Apparently you missed what I posted directly below this.

[BunnyX]

Here's the science for those of you doubters. I can't put in too many links or it won't post, but you can use the information to find the studies online.
..........­..........­..........­........

calorie intake is not the problem

In several cross-sectional studies, overweight subjects have often been found to eat the same or smaller amounts of food compared to normal-weight subjects (Baecke et al., 1983; Braitman et al., 1985; Keen et al., 1979; Kromhout, 1983b; Lincoln, 1972; Noppa, 1980; Romieu et al., 1988). (See Table 6-1.) In all cases, except the study of "research patients" by Beaudoin and Mayer (1953), the mean intake by the overweight subjects was less than that of the controls.

----------­----------­--
fat people already get more exercise and burn more calories

Obese people have a modestly, but significantly, higher 24-hour energy expenditure than do normal-weight subjects (James, 1983).

have found little difference between the activity level of obese and control subjects (Stefanik et al., 1959; Tryon, 1987; Wilkinson et al., 1977)
.

and one link

http://anilsahi.blogspot.com/2009/01/why-do-some-people-never-seem-to-get.html

[BunnyX]

Choices? If we really want to charge extra for insurance for people who cost more because of their own choices, we should look first at women of child-bearing age. Hospital bills, doctor's bills, and then the baby's charges - all completely avoidable! And if something goes wrong and there are problems for mother or child, those bills can easily run over $100,000. It's costing people like me a fortune in higher insurance to support these women who CHOOSE to become pregnant, and I'm tired of footing the bill for them. Their husbands or boyfriends should pay more, too - the women aren't getting pregnant by themselves.

.....or we could decide we are all a community and want to help each other, and acknowledge that sometimes we give more than our share and sometimes we need more than our share, and that none of us know what the future holds in store.

And this being the internet - let me make clear for anyone who thought I might be being serious about the pregnant women, I was not. I was just applying the same judgmental criteria to a different group, to show how wrong and ugly the bigotry on here sounds to anyone decent.

[fairness4all]

Serious or not you made a good point!

If you can't afford children, don't have them!

It's a matter of personal responsibility!

[empiricalWeb]

Why are you people all claiming "last minority" when Fat people can through work become Skinny people. You are the ONLY minority of CHOICE.

[alieninvader]

Fat is the only addiction that you wear. If you start weeding out all the other addictive and self destructive behaviors, there would be very few insurable people left.

[digeridoo2]

That's not true. My wife is addicted to shoes.

[DHFabian]

Sorry, but America functions on a strict scapegoat policy. We scapegoated welfare recipients, then got rid of welfare, so we needed a new scapegoat. We came down hot and heavy on cigaret smokers, but this is starting to fall apart, too; under 20% of us smoke, very few will develop a disease as a result, most of us have absolutely no exposure to tobacco smoke, and this lays bare the miserable fact that escalating rates of disease (not to mention the destruction of the entire planet's environment) is because of our cars... and we don't want to quit driving as much as we wish. Well, you can't scapegoat a majority, right? We need a different scapegoat. With conditions as bad as they are today, no one really wants to scapegoat those who drink. So, what are our choices? We choose over-weight people because they are instantly identifiable, sparing us the bother of thinking at all. If we're over-weight, we simply point a finger at someone who is fatter. All things considered, I think Americans really, really want someone -- anyone! -- toward whom they can feel superior.

[FabulousAt52]

Thank you. That is so true on so many emotional levels.

Our society has spent the last three generations being trained, manipulated and brainwashed into judging each other -- not by our actions, or contributions -- but by what one LOOKS like, and what one HAS, materially.

We have convinced our young people (male and female) that if a woman isn't THIN, trendy-fashionable and serviceable to men, then they are pretty much useless and deserve no respect or love....

[BunnyX]

Exactly! And telling yourself that you are not only better than people who are overweight, but that it's all because of your own hard work, good judgment, and moral superiority (rather than luck and good heredity) is a double bonus.

[micgrafx]

Of the 60 million survivors of childhood sexual abuse in America today, approximately 48 million are female. Statistically speaking, about half of those, or 24 million women, have experienced an eating disorder at some point in their lives. That's more than ALL the people who live in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles... COMBINED!

Some of these women have struggled their entire lives. Some have developed anorexia. Some have developed bulimia. And some have developed a compulsive eating disorder.

I do not believe in fat pride. But I am definitely a believer in not discriminating against someone based on their size. Victims of sexual abuse don't wear placards that read, "I survived sexual abuse." And if someone out there sedates their psychological pain by eating too many cookies, they need help... not name-calling, or a diet, or a higher insurance premium.

[kathy001]

Very illuminating comment. Thanks for this information. And I completely agree with you.

[GO-BAMA]

Discrimination: treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit.

Judging a person to be unhealthy because they display obvious physical symptoms that support that judgment is not discrimination because it is absolutely based on individual merit. It has nothing to do with obese people as a group - this is, at a fundamental level, about the individual.

The claim that one can be healthy and obese is absurd and is not supported by any legitimate medical research, but rather, refuted by it. There are varying classes of obesity, obviously, and there are flaws in both BMI index systems that don't account for body type, muscle density, etc. However, there is not a qualified doctor in the world that will tell you you can be classified as class I obese or more for a long term period and not suffer consequences to your health.

How individuals became obese, or how difficult it is for them to lose the weight is not relevant. It's your body, and you are ultimately responsible for it. Remaining in that condition is certainly a choice. It's choosing to neglect your health.

[BunnyX]

See the response below for a refutation of your statement that the existence of healthy obese people is not supported by research. It is, and you're wrong. Again.

[GO-BAMA]

It's truly unbelievable that you honestly believe you can remove yourself from responsibility of your own body. Argue all you want here in this abstract prism, but in reality, the bottom line is irrefutable. You are ultimately responsible for your own body. Sorry.

[GO-BAMA]

I've read most of your comments, thank you. Entering into a debate with someone who believes most obese people are perfectly healthy is like arguing with someone who believes the Earth is flat. Enjoy your victimhood.

[BunnyX]

Arguing with someone who is unwilling to examine evidence is like talking to a wall. Enjoy your arrogance.

[SloLo]

American Institute of Cancer Research put out data and press release on the number of cancer cases that could be prevented by diet physical activity and weight maintenance.

AICR found that 45 percent of colon cancer cases and 38 percent of breast cancer cases in the US are preventable through diet, physical activity and weight maintenance.

link to press release and analysis:
http://www.aicr.org/site/News2?abbr=pr_&page=NewsArticle&id=14613&news_iv_ctrl=1102

[BunnyX]

I looked at the article, and what really struck me was the word 'estimate' in nearly every sentence. These are guesses - educated guesses, but still guesses.

One of the problems here is innumeracy - the number equivalent of illiteracy. People don't really understand what numbers mean. Here's an example: "In 2002, about 41,000 new cases of cancer in the United States were estimated to be due to obesity. This means that about 3.2 percent of all new cancers are linked to obesity."

Sounds bad, doesn't it? Look again - it means that 96.8% of all cancers had NOTHING to do with obesity. It means that your odds of getting cancer, if obese, are only very SLIGHTLY higher than if you aren't. Not WAY higher, not "almost inevitable", but only a tiny bit higher.

Here's another example: I went to the myhealthad­visor.diab­etes.org website and answered some questions, which they then use to calculate your risk of developing diabetes. It said my risk, as an obese person, of developing diabetes by the time I'm 72 is 20%. Again, flip it - that means that an obese person like me has an 80% chance of NOT getting diabetes. For every statistic you hear about how 1/4 of obese people get some disease, it means that 3/4 DON'T get that disease. In other words, a large percentage of them are healthy.

Here are the results of a study backing that up:
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jdtyRM7f_9jigTmfnmMaAQOZjF1Q

[FabulousAt52]

Thank you BunnyX, I have researched those "statistics" and studies as well over the years.

Stats are one of the easiest manipulated modes of information -- as you so clearly pointed out. Yes, when one is fat, their risk for certain illnesses and/or conditions is *slightly* raised over the risk numbers for those who are not fat or obese.

However, it is quite the trend by those who profit from these stats and the 'fears' and 'scapegoating' they provide, to simply forget what the actual risk factor percentages are and just use general terms such as:

"Obese women more likely to get cervical cancer..." How much more likely? Try about 2% more likely. That means for every 100 fat women only two MAY develop cervical cancer. And out of 100 thin women... only two MAY escape the incidence of cervical cancer. This does not mean "Fat women get cervical cancer [or any other disease] from being fat". Never did, never will.

[independentthinker2]

I'm wondering where Ms. Wann was when the law was passed for seat belts...or the war on smoking..trans-fat anyone? It seems the American people only speak up when big government gets into their habits and or lifestyles. Of course the new 'health reforms' will target overweight people with higher rates as they do smokers. And why not... We all know the health problems from being overweight, just as we do from smoking or the risk of injury if we don't wear a seat belt. The decision is if we want the government regulating 'what is best' for us........

[BunnyX]

I think not being murdered is best for me, and I'm happy to have the government regulating that.

I really don't understand this paranoia about the 'nanny state'. Public health is a legitimate concern of government.

[Kay Plus Figured]

I feel this is more about equality as a human being rather than obesity, fat pride or food consumption. Does it really matter what size we are or how many calories we take in when it comes to being treated fairly as a person? Health care is a necessity for all living creatures - regardless of who they are, what their faults may be, what their personal habits consist of, where they reside or their justification of personal pride. This would be a much more beneficial world and a more successful country if each individual could leave judgement up to the higher power. Plus Figured (http://www.plusfigured.com) promotes self acceptance of plus size women for a happier life. Personal circumstances of a person's life are not up for judgement by society, in general. If fat people can accept themselves then why can't society accept that fact? If anyone is not able to understand or accept the fact that fat people can be happy with themselves and accept the fact that health care is meant to help all citizens, then maybe they need to consider what a discriminatory act they are participating in.

[susanava]

We are the highest power there is any evidence of. I'm not interested in the judgment of any imaginary figures. For the large majority of cases, obesity is the result of personal choices and actions. And like all other choices, it has consequences. Be an adult and accept those consequences.
Being obese is not the same as being gay or being a member of a racial minority group. You do have equal rights, what you don't have is special rights.

[BunnyX]

I don't have equal rights. I'm a member of the last minority that it's considered ok to discriminate against. Whether being fat is my choice or not (it's not) it's still none of your business. I'll allow you the right to criticize me when I get to pass judgment on your 'choices' in return.