Most Americans say they would have no problem voting for an African-American for president.
What about voting for a fat candidate for president? Would you?
[The obese William Howard Taft doesn't count -- he was president nearly a hundred years ago, when there was no YouTube, and prosperous men ate eight-course meals. His surname is an anagram for Fat-T.]
More than ageism, and now at least as much as racism, fat-ism is running amok -- worse now than it was in the 1990s, and vrtually unprotected by any laws. Women feel the sting of its stereotypes more than men, so says a recent Yale study on the subject, and it holds the overweight back from getting jobs and getting raises and promotions in the jobs they do have. Another Yale study two years ago found that rather than be fat, nearly half of the people surveyed would give up a year of their lives. A third would rather be divorced than fat, and one in five would rather be childless than fat.
Maybe all this is why the National Associadtion to Advance Fat Acceptance is in Los Angeles for its big annual press conference today. California has been especially receptive to extending protections to women, minorities and gays -- maybe it's fat people's turn to demand the same.
Rebecca Puhl, who heads community and weight stigma initiatives at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale, says that where other public biases -- race, gender, age -- are now taboo, weight weight discrimination still gets a pass, in part because people assume the fat "lack self-discipline,'' are lazy, or have other character flaws.
If NAAFA is making its case in LA, it's putting itself into the lion's mouth. In some ZIP codes around here, a woman who wears a size-ten dress [two sizes smaller than the national average] is regarded as a blimp on legs. Actresses get respectful reviews for being brave enough to wear a fat suit and ugly themselves up. A New Yorker cartoon of recent vintage shows an outline of the US, all in white except for two tiny black regions -- LA and Manhattan. The white key reads ''too fat'' and the black key reads ''too thin.''
Michigan has a longstanding law against fat discrimination, and Massachusetts, says Puhl, is considering one. Maybe California will indeed be where NAAFA wants to make a stand. NAAFA will also need to sort out fat's many mixed messages in order to sell its own effectively. Is fat genetic? Environmental? The fault of poverty? Of full-frontal ad campaigns for junk food? Of high-fructose corn syrup sweetener? All of them? Is it possible to call for ''fat power'' if you also argue that the society, or the individual, has the power to control it? And as Puhl points out, fat people themselves are nearly as likely to buy into the stereotypes about themselves as their thinner brethren are.
I'm be really curious to see how an anti-fat discrimination measure would fare in the California Legislature -- and how long it would take for someone under the big dome in Sacramento to let slip a chubby joke.
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That means a Japanese would only eat 275 calories with their coffee, whereas a westerner wouldn't think twice about 550. I spent three years over there, and lost weight without thinking about it, as did most western men I knew. We got used to smaller portion sizes, more vegetables, less bread and less fat, and we got slimmer. Nothing complicated about it.
To a certain extent, you can blame advertising, you can blame restaurants and sandwich shops for making us used to ever-bigger portions, you can blame our sedentary lifestyles (which is the same as saying we're lazy) ... But in the end we are the ones who make the choice about what we eat and how much we eat -- and that's the fundamental reason why making a comparison between obesity and race is completely ridiculous.
And if it doesn't kill you it will definitely make your quality of life decrease by a pretty large amount.
The fact that there is an organization to promote and protect fat people, as if it were just another healthy lifestyle choice, is, quite frankly, absurd.
Secondly, have you guys seen the TV show "The Biggest Losers"? That is one reality TV, I feel, is making a positive contribution to society. The extremely obese contestants go through drastic lifestyle alteration to achieve ... results! I've never had a weight problem, but having watched the show inspired me to change my lifestyle to become healthier. Those people are heroes.
As much as I want to be empathetic to social and genetic conditions of obese people, it's difficult for me to not root for freewill. If there's anything this country has abundant of is the personal liberty to get oneself out of the role of being a victim of circumstances. All you have to do is to inform yourself, become more conscious of your choices, and get to work! (This applies for prosperity, too!)
Lastly, I'm tired of people blaming the media as influences of their own happiness. I understand that the media can be a nuisance, but please, feel free to separate it from your own reality.
"More than ageism, and now at least as much as racism, fat-ism is running amok -- worse now than it was in the 1990s, and vrtually [sic] unprotected by any laws."
Really? I have missed news reports of the obese being tied to trucks in Texas and dragged to death. And that wasn't a measuring tape hanging from that tree in Jena, Louisiana. It was a noose. Is fat the new black? No, and there is no comparison. It's insulting that most media downplay the persistence and perpetuation of racism in this country until they need to use it as a basis for comparison of injustices to other groups.
junk f00d sc1ence . bl0gsp0t.c0m
i'm trying it this way to see if i can get by the filter
Really? Michael Pollan in his recent book makes a case that no one knows what anyone eats; nutritional studies are generally based on worthless reporting from thins and fats alike.
If a person adds two pounds a year for thirty years, say from age 20 to age 50, he must end up fat. Yet there is no special motive or delusion required to explain eating very slightly too much to maintain an even weight.
Delusional about health? Imagine that they are OK? How dare they. We insist that fat persons not only feel ugly, feel shame, but also feel unhealthy. A dollop of guilt because they are dragging down the rest of us, somehow, anyhow. Either they die too soon, their fault, or they are sick too much and use up the resources that belong, really, to the thin and deserving.
In 1962 13% of the population was considered obese, by 2002 that was 31%
63% of Americans are overweight.
If we are showing such prejudice, we are doing so to 2/3's of the population.
I was all for the "fat is beautiful" cries in the 1980's. But things are out of control.
Now, fat is normal.
If it was just a matter of beauty, it would be one thing, but it causes type II diabetes, which is an insidious disease, which also so happens to be very expensive as well.
As of 2007, 23.6 million people—7.8% of the population—have diabetes; 1.6 million new cases of diabetes were diagnosed in people aged 20 years or older in 2007.
the whole concept of preventing discrimination is to not hold it against people on things that cannot be changed. Fatness doesnt classify on that count.
It could be a lot worse. If you use drugs instead of food to comfort yourself and numb your worst emotions, then you can end up in the state prison system where one to two inmates die of medical neglect every week.
People who abuse food and end up obese as a result are very lucky that nobody is going to ban food any time soon.
"Fat" people are NOT....
Lazy or Gluttonous or Un-hygienic or Evil or Immoral or Greedy or Un-desirable or Disgusting.
But the media continues to portray "Fat" people (and the definition of "Fat" is getting thinner all the time!) in this way. Is it any wonder why people would see "Fat" people this way?
Consider this: Marilyn Monroe would be considered Obese today as she averaged around 150 very beautiful lbs.
"Fat" isn't about the volume of food a person eats. It is a metabolic disorder brought about by the lack of education and the lack of accessable REAL food; and when you look around and see just how many additives, "hormone-mimics", high fructose corn syrup, chemicals, and only remotely "food-like substances" are in the dare we say "food" that people buy and eat, and are sometimes the only type of sustenance available in some areas (read "ghettos" another word that has gone out of "vogue" but still very real nontheless) then we have to also consider that "Fat" is also a "class" and "race" issue, since the poorest neighborhoods are still the least likely to have access to fresh produce and good quality un-processed foods. Fat is a racist issue, a feminist issue (we must not forget the feminization of poverty), an issue well worth our paying attention to and changing our attitudes about. Let's start with changing the media and go from there.
That doesn't mean you're lazy or bad but it does mean that you're abusing food. You're using food in a way that is harming your body instead of nourishing it.
For example, someone I know always appears to eat very normally around others. You would be convinced it you ate dinner at her house that she was just a victim of some metabolic disorder.
But I once spent the night at her house, and I noticed she got up in the middle of the night and devoured a very large bag of bagels in a single sitting.
That was an addict engaging in substance abuse, not a victim of a metabolic disorder.
The notion of "calories in calories out" is a MYTH....It is not only the amount of food one eats (most people thin or fat don't eat ENOUGH and their metabolisms suffer for it) but the composition of that food and how it affects metabolism, hormonal balance, according to age/race/gender/genetic pre-dispositions, medications being taken (like steroids for asthma and inflammatory disease or anti-depressants among some). Combine all these factors with vast amounts of additives and NON-foods and it's a "perfect storm" waiting to happen.
Poverty causes people to have much less access to REAL wholesome food since supermarkets are not in the habit of being located in poorer areas.
We all need to educate ourselves and find what will makes us more healthy, happy, FIT but not necessarily THIN...it takes all of us to change the prejudice and ignorance about obesity.
Whether it is culture-bound to choices of food, activity or other factors, and whether it is conscious or not, it is a choice.
I liken it to smoking, in that the medical evidence is overwhelmingly in favor against it, yet people who choose to smoke do it with that knowledge. Becoming obese is a similar form of self-delusion.
I come from a family of obese people, and they all blamed their thyroids until the blood panels revealed thyroid function was totally normal. No, it was all the sitting around and over-eating food with little nutritive value and then finishing off a huge desert every night.
I bucked the family trend and was thin my whole life until I got divorced, when I gained aver 100 pounds. I didn't blame anyone or anything but myself. My diet of beer, pizza and ice cream did it. Sure I talked like I was eating healthy and made a show of it around friends: "Look! I am eating a salad!"
It was my choice to be a fat slug.
I love Pat Morrison, but I think putting the fat in with the aged and minorities is off the mark. We need to look at the fat as people who are generally delusional about their health and eating habits....just like I was.
I was once nearly obese- but with help from my parents, financial flexibility AND hard work I got there, and am preparing for a photo shoot! But it was only when I had access to knowledge and help to put it into place that I could truly choose to get healthy.
Government policy is the best way to impact this problem rapidly. Universal access to Medicare, or at the very least affordable health care, wide access to preventative medicine and tax rebates for healthy lifestyles; as well as restrictions on fast food proliferation and better consumer info (ala NY) would make a real impact on this problem, and cost substantially less than the future costs of inaction.
Choice is never absolute, but is something we need to develop in each other.
Same thing with alcohol. If alcohol addiction was a choice, then it would be really easy for alcoholics to quit drinking.
I know an alcoholic and she hasn't had an easy time of quitting at all, no matter how badly she's wanted and needed to quit.
Food has to be the hardest addiction to quit, because people have to eat to live. So there's no chance to practice zero tolerance or to go cold turkey.
I see obesity as an addiction problem and I do have empathy for addicts.