New Study Shows Stores Discriminate Against Fat Women Shoppers
| April 13th, 2005Thanks to Bob Hayes for the tip.
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Sales clerks tend to discriminate against shoppers who are obese, according to new study findings.
Investigators found that when women wore a prosthetic suit designed to make them look obese, they were treated more rudely, and received fewer smiles and less eye contact from sales clerks at a Houston, Texas, shopping mall than when they shopped without the fat suit.
Sales clerks — almost three-quarters of whom were women — also tended to end interactions with obese shoppers more quickly, and use a negative tone with them.
Obese shoppers tended to experience more discrimination when they were casually dressed than when they were in professional attire.
However, when the apparently overweight shoppers sipped a diet soda and said they were trying to lose weight, they were treated just as nicely as when they shopped without their artificial bulk.
It seems to me that the last point suggests that’s what’s going on isn’t irresistable disgust, but instead moral disapproval. If the store clerks were simply too overwhelmed with emotion to treat fat women equally, then it wouldn’t make a difference what the fat person says. However, that’s not the case. If a fat woman implicitely agrees to the fat = immorality system by indicating that she is trying to reform her sinful ways (through dieting), then and only then will they be given equal treatment.
The full article has more, including the point that stores are actually losing money due to store employee discrimination.
UPDATE: Interesting discussion related to this study over at Big Fat Blog.
April 13th, 2005 at 4:54 pm
not to diminish the point of the article, but I’d also add that in my time as a salesgirl at a mall boutique I often ran into the problem of even slightly overweight women looking for sizes that we just did not carry. Most mall-type stores only fully stock sizes up to 11/12- hardly what anyone would call fat. Unfortunately, sales clerks on horrible commission systems have little incentive to interact with customers they are guaranteed to disappoint. The problem lies with the understocking of sizes normal women need and the commission system that keeps sales clerks out for a buck and not for good service.
I can’t tell you how upsetting it was to have to continually tell healthy women that we didn’t carry their size and have to suggest the ONE plus-sized store in the mall. Eventually, I must admit, I wanted to avoid that conversation entirely.
This comment was written by maggie.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2005 at 5:08 pm
That’s not a factor in this study, Maggie, because these women specifically told the clerks they were looking for a gift for someone else.
I agree with Amp that the judgment being made is moral, not aesthetic. You’re fat and so you’re bad - although we’ll permit you to try to redeem yourself and even be supportive of that, so long as you recognize your own wickedness.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2005 at 5:59 pm
Did you see Salon’s recent odious article about Torrid stores, with the ludicrous argument that making attractive clothes in large sizes somehow encourages child obesity? As I expected, Salon got flooded with letters, all of them scathing.
I particularly liked this letter by Rich Pizor:
This comment was written by Lis Riba.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2005 at 6:24 pm
Hi Lis!
Anyhow, I agree with the moral issues on fat women in stores. I’ve worked at womens retail clothing stores. I saw the behind the counter observations there, especialy by the younger clerks. They were downright nasty when talking about fat women. Oh, and no one the store hired was fat either.
This comment was written by Josh Jasper.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2005 at 7:09 pm
They needed a *study* to find this out? I could have told them that for free.
And yes, stores do lose money on this.
This comment was written by Sheena.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2005 at 7:53 pm
Rudeness is never excusable. But fat, in sufficiently large quantities, is a major health risk.
I used to work in a candy store, and we had occasional customers who were, to use the clinical term, morbidly obese–easily upwards of 350 pounds on a ~5′6″ frame. This kind of weight is deadly. It leads to Type II diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and (statistically) early death. And these customers typically bought at least two pounds of fudge.
I have a BMI over 30, which makes me obese. So I’ve read a lot about the health risks I’m facing, and it’s not remotely pretty. I exercise and I’m losing weight. The risks some of our customers faced were absolutely horrifying.
I didn’t enjoy helping these customers–I had to face the fact that I was helping them injure themselves–but I tried to be polite.
This comment was written by Eric.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2005 at 8:06 pm
So THAT’S why I can never find a clerk!
This comment was written by Frida.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2005 at 9:02 pm
And I expect you felt the same when helping overly thin customers, Eric? Of course you’d make the same health-conscious judgement considering excessive thinness is just as unquestionably unhealthy? Surely you gave them looks suggesting they get food with more healthy proteins and what not, instead of the sugary sweets that don’t provide ANYONE nutritional value?
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2005 at 9:17 pm
It is increasingly clear that no manner of injustice can befall fat people without some self-righteous individual like Eric stepping in to remind say “but fatties are just downright wrong!”
FAT PEOPLE BEING TAKEN OUT OF THEIR HOMES AND SHOT
“I don’t condone murder, but I don’t think its important to remember that fat people are committing suicide already. Isn’t this just assisted suicide?”
What on earth does common courtesy have to do with your moral disapporval of fat people, Eric? Why can fat people not even expect to be treated like human beings? Heck, even just be treated like consumers without having to be told that everything bad that happens to us is really our fault because we aren’t nice to look at. So we want to by a chocolate bar. How about you get a grip about this moral dilema and just deal with it. But no. Your self loathing just has to be projected outward to all those horrible fatties who dared to want candy. Your comments are a clear example of the way retail clerks pass moral judgements on fat people without knowing anything of their lives. Because you presume fat is death sentances and that fat people are gluttonous hogs, naturally you should hate to deal with fat people. But fat isn’t as deadly as you presume it is. And its not caused by having some jelly bellies when we darn well want those jelly bellies. You passing judgement on strangers may make you feel better about yourself, but its no great enlightenment. Just more wallowing in the mire.
This comment was written by Brian.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2005 at 10:20 pm
Ampersand: here’s a post about unfair discrimination to fat people.
Inevitable response: but fat is unhealthy!
It’s so annoyingly predictable.
And I’m having trouble typing right now as my middle and ring fingers of my left hand are currently taped together, but I’ll say when I was working for Albertson’s, by the end I was so disgruntled, I was equally rude to everyone.
This comment was written by Raznor.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2005 at 10:21 pm
Oops, didn’t read Brian’s post before posting that. May that be a lesson to me.
This comment was written by Raznor.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 12:04 am
Sheena, I know you probably aren’t dismissing the study with your remark, but yes, they do need a study to make this finding, or at least to prove a general perception.
Until a structured study is carried out, it’s just annecdotal evidence, and not really anything that society can act on (companies of course acts upon annecdotal evidence all the time).
Now, when a structured study has been made, society (and the companies) can work upon addressing the problem.
This comment was written by Kristjan Wager.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 3:35 am
A visitor or two over at BFB (hi!) noted that the study size was relatively small overall, but it is still nice to see this discrimination acknowledged in the press.
I don’t plan to jump on Eric here since Brian gave him a good rebuttal already but, yes, it seems that every discussion about fat outside of moderated circles includes a giant asterisk by it. “These fat people are okay… but these other ones aren’t.” Ridiculous.
It just seems like there’s so much money to be made by providing products and services to fat people, and yet here is almost everyone totally screwing it up. This is still America, right?
This comment was written by Paul.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 5:17 am
And I expect you felt the same when helping overly thin customers, Eric?
That’s an excellent question, actually. I can’t answer it directly, because there weren’t many customers with visible exercise or eating disorders in a small-town candy store. But I’d feel even guiltier selling two pounds of fudge to a 90-pound bulimic.
In college, I shared a dorm with a fairly serious exercise anorexic. She used to sit around the common room, reading Victoria’s Secret, loudly exclaiming, “She’s so fat! She shouldn’t be in this catalog!” at random models. The publishers of Victoria’s Secret should certainly feel guilty.
And it’s pretty unfair to morally disapprove of people suffering from morbid obesity (in the BMI 60-75+ range). Several of the people I saw in the candy store risked physically immobility if they put on another 100 pounds, and nobody chooses that. It’s not gluttony or a lack of self-control, it’s a serious medical condition.
Selling candy is a lot like selling alcohol: your product is acceptable in moderation, but you also profit by exploiting people with underlying medical conditions. How should a local brewery respond to alcoholism? Should everybody who sells candy or beer face the same moral opprobrium as the tobacco companies and casinos? I don’t know.
But I understand your larger complaint, I hope. Even if I had legitimate reason to feel guilty for selling candy, this was a far from appropriate forum in which to discuss the issue, and my comments–upon re-reading–were very poorly phrased. Anybody who weighs 350-450 pounds has received a lifetime of underserved disapproval and condemnation from parents, doctors, and random strangers on the street. My message was both condescending and insensitive.
My apologies.
This comment was written by Eric.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 5:21 am
I don’t think society knows how to deal with issues of weight. Fat is not immoral, but it can be unhealthy. Fat is more pervasive than, say, pregnancy, but you get the same kind of reaction: people who think they know what you should be doing and who don’t mind expressing their disapproval in a semi-public and frequently crude and embarrassing manner. I would say that it’s wrong to think that this kind of disapproval is limited to fat people — look at how smokers have been vilified, and society has responded sometimes with a vengeance that doesn’t seem quite limited to the issue of health consciousness. And eating disorders are treated as a disease even if they are baffling to identify and difficult to cure. Of course there are differences. Fat is visible. The others may not be. And society literally tries to stuff unhealthy food down your throat day in and day out. It’s a perversity that’s hard to fathom.
I waited tables for more than a few years and I tried to forget who I was waiting on. I served alcohol to pregnant women and disgusting fatty foods to whoever wanted them without thinking a whole lot about it. Rudeness should never be considered acceptable, it’s always out of place.
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 9:18 am
1. Why the fat suits? When studying racial discrimination we don’t send white people out in blackface, we compare how white customers and black customers at the same store are treated.
2. I don’t like that the focus of the study places the blame on the low-paid female workers rather than the retail bigwigs who do everything they can to make stores unfriendly to larger people in the name of being “classy.” It seems like shooting fish in a barrel to attack retail/service workers. And I say this having gotten snotty treatment for my size in stores on too many occassions to enumerate.
This comment was written by Jasper.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 9:38 am
Go easy on Eric. He wasn’t saying it would be ok to be unkind to an overweight person. But as soon as he is honest about seeing overweight people as unhealthy, he is all but called a nazi. Fat is indeed a health issue, and to pretend that it is not seems to me to be patently ridiculous. Anorexia is not the only alternative to being overweight, so to suggest that “skinny” people are just as unhealthy is unworthy of rebuttal. Naturally an overweight person should be treated with respect, regardless of circumstances, and of course I should always remind myself that I don’t know any particular person’s private issues. This does not mean that I have to train myself to think that being overweight is desireable or healthy when clearly it is not for me and many other people.
This comment was written by Elena.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 9:42 am
My guess is they used fat suits to try to control for other factors like blonde vs brunette, tall vs short, etc.
This comment was written by Samantha.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 9:42 am
Jasper:
1. Blackface is easy to spot. Fatsuits look realistic enough so people don’t notice them. And since this is based on how the people performing the study are treated, it helps to have both cases available so a person can compare the two experiences.
2. I don’t see this as attacks on the low-level employees, but rather an indication of how society at large treats fat people. You can’t just go about your everyday and observe things, because there’s no control over the type of people you meet. On the other hand, retail workers are paid to be nice to their customers, so if they’re mean to fat people, doesn’t give much hope for society at large.
This comment was written by Raznor.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 9:51 am
We don’t try to “control” for individual personality in other kinds of discrimination studies, though.
This comment was written by Jasper.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 10:10 am
We don’t try to “control”? for individual personality in other kinds of discrimination studies, though.
We do if we’re trying to conduct science.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 10:19 am
I’m no fan of the use of fat suits in these studies, either. I can only presume they are intended to control for any expectation of abuse from actual fat people, which strikes me as entirely unnecessary nannying. We should need thin people to validate the abuse given fat people, but there we are nonetheless. I don’t think it makes the study fundamentally flawed.
I also don’t think the blame is being given to low-level employees. Indeed, if this is the behavior of low level employees it simply reflects society’s prejudices. In a business sense, the blame belongs with management for not identifying and dealing with this problem. That the study focused on the retail clerks is just a product of the situation. They can’t do a study on the way businesses are hostile towards fat people because that’s all insider stuff. I’d love to see some investigative journalism on the matter, but I doubt there are any whistleblowers who care or reporters who care. The outlet of those policies and negligences are retail clerks. I used to work as a retail clerk and I know how obsessive our behavior was considered by the company. If this is happening, even if the clerks are doing it, no one should think they are the problem. Its society’s problem, and the company’s for not doing anything to counteract it. Either because they don’t bother to notice, or because they’d just as soon let it go on.
This comment was written by Brian.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 10:21 am
Jasper, yes they do try to control for relevant factors — for instance, when trying to gauge housing discrimination, you send two people of different races whose credit history, salary, and job experience are roughly comparable — of course, you can make stuff like that up, but still, you definitely do try to control for “relevant” variables. Certainly, if you are trying to bring any kind of legal action against a lender or a real estate broker you have to do this.
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 10:29 am
It’s also pretty clear that fatness is “unacceptable” in this context because it’s “icky”, not for any other reason.
Logically, a fat person who “can’t control his or her eating” also wouldn’t be able to control their spending. Wouldn’t you want people with no self-control to spend money at your store?
Then again, the fashion industry is not in the reality-based community. As Janeane Garofalo said, they can kiss my fat ass.
Salon’s post hoc ergo procter hoc article is analogous to blaming burglar alarm companies for an increase in crime.
This comment was written by Aaron.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 10:55 am
I have to agree with Barbara that similar studies of sex and race discrimination (that I’ve read) have also tried to control for personality as well; for instance, matching people by similar accents, and rehearsing people to make sure that they behave in similar ways. Actually using the same person, if possible, strikes me as a good way of making sure that body size is actually the variable being measured.
Of course, I can also see problems with the procedure. When you’re using different testers, it’s possible to keep exactly what is being tested secret from the testers, which prevents them from unconsciously altering their behavior to influence the results. When you dress someone in a fat suit, they’re gonna figure out that fat vs. not-fat is what’s being tested.
Still, no single method will ever be perfect; the fat suit strikes me as a legitimate procedure. For that matter, if it were practical to do, I don’t think I’d have a problem with a study that sent the same people - first in disguise as the opposite sex, then as themselves, or first as a person of color, and then with white makeup a la Eddie Murphy in “white like me” - to the same places to compare treatment when everything but sex or race is identical.
As far as this study goes, what I’d like to see next is a study that used the same basic procedure to look at hiring practices. And it would be interesting to include reactions to fat men in addition to reactions to fat women.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 11:00 am
I’m always astounded by the condescension that is tolerated here as within the bounds of “civility.” I’m perfectly aware of how “science” works, Robert. Knowing that doesn’t bar me from disagreeing with how individual researchers choose to carry out a study.
I think that the ubiquity of “fat suits” adds to the perception that fat people aren’t entirely human, frankly, and that is the basis of my objection.
This comment was written by Jasper.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 11:14 am
Jasper, you’d be less astounded if you realized how much time it takes me to moderate to keep “Alas” comments readable. To do the kind of in-depth moderation necessary to no longer “tolorate” comments like that post of Robert’s would require me to make “Alas” my full-time job, rather than just my overwhelming hobby.
I don’t know where I ever gave the impression that Every Single Comment posted here is “Amp-approved as civil!” That’s not the case. I don’t have time enough to do that.
Nonetheless, I agree with Jasper, Robert; your comment’s tone was needlessly obnoxious and insulting.
Regarding fat suits, I think that you’re absolutely right that in general they’re used in dehumanizing ways; in another post I described the message of Mike Myers in a fat suit as “Get your yummy fat-hatred without having to think of fat people as real people!”? On the other hand, I don’t think that necessarily means that fat suits can never be used in positive ways, and this study strikes me as a legitimate use.
I’d be curious to know if the study designers pondered this issue at all, though, or if they just assumed that there were no problems inherent in using fat suits. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t surprise me if it were the latter.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 11:25 am
NO ONE IS GOING TO FORCE YOU TO HAVE SEX WITH FAT PEOPLE.
NO ONE IS GOING TO FORCE YOU TO BECOME FAT.
This isn’t about finding fat desirable or healthy. This is about basic respect and only about basic respect. The post was about how overweight people are definitely not being treated with respect, even when they’re willing to pay for it. There’s nothing fattening about a pair of capri pants. If you understand the difference between fat-activist fascism and a basic request for dignity, then stop bringing up the former when everyone else is talking about the latter.
Then Eric jumped into this discussion with comments that were prejudiced. He has a problem selling candy to overweight people, but not to anyone else, even though there are plenty of other people who shouldn’t be eating as much sugar as they do. Like, you know, thin people who buy lots and lots of candy. He wasn’t mindful of his ignorance of each customer’s “private issues.” He was making snap judgments based on appearance.
Most eating disorders are invisible, especially to strangers. I guarantee you that he sold candy to people with bulimia. They weren’t necessarily the skinny customers. Some of them could very well have been overweight.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 11:49 am
I have yet to figure out exactly why so many men that jump into this discussion seem afraid that if fat people are treated with respect, then someone is going to make them fuck a woman they aren’t attracted to. Where’s the disconnect? What’s the logic there?
The closest thing I can figure is that there are only thin women because shame keeps us under control and without that shame, all thinness would disappear at once.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 11:49 am
Sorry about my tone, although I confess to admiration at your psychic skills in discerning tone from an eight-word declarative sentence.
All I was trying to say - perhaps too brusquely - is that we do indeed try to control for personality characteristics in discrimination studies like this. If we don’t, then the study is of little interest or utility. That means that if there is a way to have the same person appear as a member of two studied categories (rather than having two different persons play that role) then that is the preferred approach. As noted, we can’t do that very well for race, so we instead use other methods to try to dampen out personal factors (standard scripts for study actors, for example, or identical clothing or resumes). But we can do it just fine for weight.
Jasper, if you think the fat suits were an incorrect way of doing the study, what protocol would you recommend in their place?
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 11:50 am
Okay, that last sentence didn’t make sense. I meant, “The closest thing I can figure the fat-phobics believe is that there are only thin women because shame keeps us under control and without that shame, all thinness would disappear at once. “
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 12:01 pm
I suspect that a fat suit would introduce as much distortion as it would prevent. I mean, it must be pretty uncomfortable to walk around in a fat suit, or any other unfamiliar prosthesis, and that’s got to distort the findings. And also, it’s possible that a person who is unaccustomed to looking fat is going to be self-conscious and behave differently than she does when she’s not wearing a fat suit.
I don’t for a second doubt that findings, and I don’t have ethical problems with using a fat suit in this instance. But from an experiment-design perspective, I think it might make as much sense to use carefully-matched fat and thin testers rather than a single tester in and out of a fat suit.
This comment was written by Sally.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 12:33 pm
I think that thin(ner) people are rude to someone they perceive as being overweight for alot of the same reasons that they are rude to anybody: first, there are an awful lot of people who have to have someone to look down on. Race and ethnicity still rank, but it’s much harder to get away with it in a public setting. Plus it’s illgal. Then, there are the disabled and the elderly, and here I think you are getting closer to the real issue: fear that it could be, and in the case of the latter, will be, you in no time at all. Studies of both these groups have turned up differences in treatment along the same lines as outlined in the study on treatment of the overweight.
Many people, but in particular women, are afraid of becoming obese or of being perceived as such. You meet an overweight person in a store and you are saying to yourself and the world: you make me realize my deepest obsessions about what I don’t ever want to become and my fears that other people might view me like you. Many women are not rational about their appearance. I imagine that most of the “low level” sales clerks here were female.
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 12:49 pm
The use of “fat suits” in entertainment is morally equivalent to “blackface”–it’s offensive in the extreme. It’s pretty disturbing that Meyer’s “Fast Bastard” character was considered an acceptable form of humor.
The behavior of the clerks in the study is pretty reprehensible, too. It’s like giving unsoliticed advice to mothers will small children–it’s a nasty form of social “correction”, and nobody appreciates it.
And not to beat a dead horse, but my guilt as a candy store clerk stemmed from being a commercial promoter of unhealthy behavior. Candy is made from sugar and butter, both of which are toxic stuff. The diabetics, we could help (we carried better-than-average sugar-free candy). But there’s no denying our products were dangerous to a large minority of the population, not all of whom were readily identifiable. At least, unlike McDonalds, we weren’t targetting school lunch programs to hook ‘em young.
This comment was written by Eric.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 1:01 pm
Being a female well above average height, I get general size discrimination, and since there’s nothing I can say that will make salespeople believe I want to reduce my height, I get rude treatment a lot. I think it may be a bit of a commission/inconvenience thing–they know they won’t be able to find anything to fit me, so why bother with the conversation.
This comment was written by Linnea.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 2:10 pm
Comedy is such a dangerous arena. Almost as dangerous as toxic sugar and butter. Not like aspartame, which is safe.
Oh damn. There I go trying to be funny again.
This comment was written by Josh Jasper.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 2:35 pm
If sugar is a poison, I guess I should stop trying to be healthy by eating lots of fruits and vegetables, since they are loaded with sugars.
Sure, sugar in excess isn’t good for you, and if you have certain medical conditions it may indeed be almost like poison, but I don’t appreciate hyperbole like this. Not to mention, as Josh Jasper said, it’s not like the sugar “replacements” are wholesome and harmless.
This comment was written by Jasper.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 3:00 pm
Some components of chocolate (flavanoids) are actually good for you and may promote heart health.
I think demonizing any food is counter-productive. Heck, even carrots can be harmful if eaten to excess. My grandma who lived to be 93 (and in excellent health right up until the end) ate a small dessert after almost all of her lunches and dinners.
This comment was written by pseu.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 3:03 pm
Queer Jasper conspiracy! Woohoo!
This comment was written by Josh Jasper.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 3:38 pm
Lest I divert this thread any further, let me apologize for my hyperbole. Sugar and butter are, of course, both perfectly fine in moderation. And artificial sweeteners do have some pretty unpleasant side effects for some people.
My thanks to Eden King for this study. She’s got a lot of interesting-looking work on her university site, but a lot of it is published in journals I don’t have access to.
This comment was written by Eric.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 5:26 pm
Well said, psue. The last thing this world needs are a bunch of retail clerks like Eric taking their cues from the objectionable pharmacists withholding birth controll, but expressing their moral outrage and deciding it is their right to decide what a fat person can and cannot eat when they walk into a store or a restaurant. Eating candy doesn’t make someone a moral inferior. If you object to selling candy to fat people, you must object to selling to all people. You’d still be wrong, but at least you wouldn’t be judgemental, ignorant, and prejudiced towards fat people.
And for what is surely not the last time, of all of McDonald’s faults, the fact that some people are upset at seeing fat people at the beach is decidedly not one that can or should be laid at their feet. I know its hip for all the cool liberals to McDonald’s bash on account of them subjecting society to all these fatties, but that line of reasoning is openly insulting to fat people, unsupported by the facts, and really besides the point when compared to their other faults. I, for one, am really sick of them being used as proxy for fat bashing.
This comment was written by Brian.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 5:45 pm
I generally agree with most of the comments here. However, since Eric has apologized for his comments, I think it would be good if folks laid off of Eric now. Thanks.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 6:15 pm
I am completely confused by this entire conversation. Almost 50% of America is overwieght. Do overwieght people discriminate against one another based on the degree of overweightness? Or does it have to do with the perceived social class of the subject? Or is it the minority discriminating against the majority (or close to majority)? Were all the clerks in the study of normal weight? I would fall over in shock if that was the case.
I know everyone is going to jump all over me for this but here goes…
I’m an American, but don’t live in the US anymore. I live in Montreal and Montrealers are one healthy bunch of people (the smoking thing is an issue here but that’s a different story). They walk everywhere, don’t eat much fast food and watch little TV (unless its Jan. and Feb.). There are very few overweight people here either. Now I have no statistics to back me up, but I’ve lived here for some time and everytime I come back to the US (which is frequently) I am continuously in a state of shock. There is nothing morally wrong with being overweight, although I know some people push that idea, but the problem in the US is out of control. I don’t know how to solve the problem, but pushing the idea that overweight = unhealthy is a myth is very irresponsible. One can be overwieght and healthy, but the vast majority are not and the risks are huge.
This comment was written by Ted.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 6:40 pm
You cannot claim you aren’t making a moral judgement while also defining our bodies as a “problem” that is “out of control”. This is another attempt to have a discussion on your terms. Terms which only allow for your opinion to be right. You clearly cannot expect an exchange of ideas when you take the approach of “surely, no one can deny that fat is unhealthy.” “Surely, we can all agree that people are eating too much and getting fat.”
Well, people do deny precisely that. And there is research, doctors, and studies to back up the point. And yet still, people think all they have to do is say “yes, but you do realize that’s not true.” Its the equivillent of sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming “I’m not listening”.
Its a real shame that you are so upset to have to look at fat people when you come to the United States, but don’t presume that your problem is my problem. What we know about fat is that its not caused by over consumpsion, nor is it cured by under consumpsion. We also know its not cured by increased activity. Or wishfull thinking. Even stomach amputation isn’t as effective as it gets made out to be, and it carries with it decreased life expectancy and decreased quality of life.
The fact that there are fat people in this country is not, in and of itself, a problem. Not in the least. Saying it is a problem, over and over and over, is not discussing the issue. It seems so many critics of fat people have nothing more to say than “but its wrong.” You don’t have to offer solutions to your problem. How about just defining the problem beyond how upsetting it is to have to see fat people. Why do you think fat is unhealthy? “Because it is,” is not an answer. Offer something that can be responded to. Don’t insist that disagreement with your opinion is impossible or “irresponsible”. Certainly not if you don’t plan on defining just what your opinion really is.
This comment was written by Brian.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 7:15 pm
I never said fat is unhealthy, in fact I have said over and over again that I won’t deny that fat can be healthy. I also never said that fat people just eat too much and should stop eating, in fact I’ve said just the opposite in another post that you have responded to.
But fair enough Brian, here is my position:
The obesity problem in the US, and worldwide, is a serious MEDICAL problem that needs serious scientific investigation. Governments spend far too little money on serious research and allow money grabbing companies and special interest groups to cater to the fears and hopes of people that can be easily manipulated based on societal pressures. Obesity is usually unhealthy, compiling a list of scientific references to prove that is not neccessary, its an accepted (for good reason) standpoint. Diabetes is rampant worlwide (I’ve written all this before) and the single best predictor for type II diabetes is obesity.
Your problem was my problem. Once upon a time I was a fairly elite football player and suffered a career ending injury. I was a lineman, so you can imagine I was pushing over 300 lbs., and after football I got bigger. My health spiralled into disaster. my knees and ankles ached, I nearly had to have disks fused in my back, and none of this had anything to do with the brain injury that caused me to leave football. The doctors told me over and over again that I needed to lose weight, and finally I did. It was pure hell. It took me 3 years to get to 250 and 3 more to get down to 200 were I am today. When i got to 225 lbs nearly all my problems went away, except my back, but I have avoided surgery thus far and hope to stay that way. I never went on a diet or anything like that. Just changed my life style, started lifting weights like a normal person and not a football player, started running/walking and riding bikes for fun and cut back a bit on food and no more soda or fast food (which was the worst part of all).
Does this make me any better than anyone else, of course not. Does it mean I discriminate or look down on fat people, NO! Does it mean that I remember what my body used to feel like and I wonder if some of the people I see would only know how good my body feels now that they might not want to the same, yes it does. But I also know I don’t know what they feel like and that my case was a special one as my pain issues were VERY serious.
Now I am in the health care industry as a neuroscientist and my wife is an ER nurse so i see the issue from several different standpoints. I am privy to alot of what goes on in the pharma and academic circles on obesity treatment. I also know first and second hand what goes on in the hospitals in areas where I have lived. In particular, in my former home of south Texas, almost all of the ER issues were related to diabetes and obesity. I’m telling you, at least in that area of the country, the problem is so bad that it is unsustainable. The health care system, in its current state, simply cannot keep up. That is what is out of control.
I’m not disgusted or mad when I see fat people when i return to the US. I’m very troubled by what I see and know enough about what is going on behind the scenes to know that the way it is going now it will not end well for anyobdy. Why exactly do you think every big pharma in the world has an antiobesity program? Because they want to help? HELL NO! Because they know it is a suceptible part of the population that they can milk for cash.
There, now you’ve asked me to get real and present my case and I’ve done that.
Tell me why then do you believe it is not a problem because that is what I take from reading your comments.
This comment was written by Ted.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 7:21 pm
Well, personally I believe the focus should more be about the health and not about the weight. Encourage healthy habits and health will hopefully fall into place, be it with a chubby body or thin one. As for the reasons, their are plenty of reasons that the US our sprawl that creates a need for transportation almost guaruntees less physical activity, and our driving push for consumption and consumerism takes shape in the form of a McDonalds on every corner. Convenience to waylay some of the inconvenience that our sprawl has created. It’s a viscious but understandable circle, and big business does nothing to stop it. Hell, even our food and health administrations are giving bad information to people, so how can you really blame the populace?
I’ts truly amazing how very much consumerism runs the US, right down to what products we push as healthy (3 servings of milk a day? cow’s milk? - so many dairy fallacies exist in our nutritional guidelines in the US it’s saddening).
Also, it’s a fact that we have a culture that makes people have unrealistic feelings about their bodies. Barbara said it right (though i think it’s not limited to women only) about how irrational people are with regards to body image. I think back on my highschool early 20 days and recall wearing a size 5/6-7/8 and having a SMOKING hot body by typical standards. I also remember never feeling like I was thin enough because I had curves. I was a 32D-26W-30Hip and still obsessed about dieting. That lead to plenty of different diets that I think attributed to my now heavier weight (not massively heavier, but definitely more than just weight attributed to my pregnancy of last year or current pregnancy, seeing as I was between a 12-14 before getting pregnant the first time). I eat healthy, I indulge in occassional snacks, but not even remotely close to the generally erroneous views that people have with regards to an overweight persons diet.
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 7:29 pm
Kim, I agree with everything you just said and especially about the urban sprawl. Society needs to come up with a manner to deal with this, especially in young people. The single biggest difference between where I am now and back in the US is consumerism, its plainly visible on every street corner from advertisements to store opening hours to wages.
This comment was written by Ted.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2005 at 8:58 pm
Off topic, but the NY Times as a good article on sexism and univeristy hiring practices. Anyone who was following the summers debate ought to read this
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/15/education/15women.html
It adds context to the argument against Summers.”
This comment was written by Josh Jasper.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 6:34 am
The original posting was about respect for overwieght people, or lack thereof. No reasonably decent person would condone being mean to an overweight cutomer at a mall. Eric made a comment about his ambivalence of working in a candy store, and got outrageously compared to the pharmacists who refuse to dispense birth control just for sharing his thoughts. Subsequent posts have been all about health issues and obesity, probably because everyone agrees that overweight people should be respected always and there’s nothing much to say about it.
Regarding Montreal: I roll my eyes a little when people from other countries talk about how fat US Americans are. Most countries are catching up as their economies change, and you must compare Montreal with a similar US metropolis where probably people walk alot and tend to be thin. They may even be more healthy because less of them smoke (which also apparently leads to weight loss, but never mind).
Unlike many people, I won’t purport to an expert about all cultures, but I will hazard a guess that there is no culture in this world where there isn’t some unrealistic ideal body image.
This comment was written by Elena.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 6:57 am
So, again, your response is to simply say “fat people are unhealthy because I say so.” You’re making an arguement which presumes a difference of opinion is impossible and thus not worth dealing with. Why, exactly, do you think fat people are unhealthy? You don’t even need to compile a list of scientific references, just offer something that can be responded to besides “because it is”.
You do say diabetes is rampant, but there is actually no good way to know if its any more common today than in the past. We know in the past that diabetes was extraordinarily underdiagnosed, so there simply is no good data. Its a bad proof of your point.
Your justify your condemnation of me with personal anecdote? Again, something that cannot be argued against because you explicitly refuse outside ideas. You mention a bad back, though. I actually grew up with major back problems. They got progressively worse in high school when I was 150lbs. Once it was so bad I couldn’t move for a week. When I was in college, I started to gain weight, eventually ending up at about 240. During this time, my back problems largely went away. I might have some mild soreness if I do something especially strenuous, but my problems aren’t more than echo of what they were when I was thin.
Is this proof that gaining weight was good for my back? Does it show that all people (or even most or even some) should endeavor to gain weight for their health and well-being? No, of course not. I’d never presume to think it proves anything at all. So why does your story prove your opinion? “I did it, so can you” is something fat people hear all the time. There is a reason they all put “Results not typical” at the bottom of diet ads. Weight loss is a treatment which fails 99% of the time. The 1% aren’t useful proof of anything all. Least of which is that there was a problem to begin with.
If “because I said so” and “it worked for me” are your arguements, then I fail to see why I should have to say anything more than that in response. You’re essentially refusing to discuss your views (I guess so as to avoid negotiating with yourself) and yet it is the responsibilities of others to present their case.
This comment was written by Brian.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 7:11 am
I’m still curious about the fat suit thing. How do they make the face look fat realistically enough to fool someone standing right there? I mean, the ones I’ve seen in movies, with professional makeup artists doing the prosthetics, usually just scream “FAT SUIT!”
I suppose the reason they did it was to have the same person recording different reactions (though why this was necessary if the person got different sales people, I don’t know). But to me, it just indicates an assumption that their findings wouldn’t be taken seriously if real fat people were used, because they might, you know, be lying or overly sensitive or it was all in their heads.
This comment was written by zuzu.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 7:35 am
But what some people don’t seem to be realizing is that the way discussions about discrimination against fat people always drift into “health issues and obesity” is a problem. No matter how much someone insists that they’re not condoning or supporting the disrespectful behavior, the moment they start in with the “oh, but it’s so unhealthy, you know…” stuff, they’re derailing the conversation and dismissing the very real issues at hand.
Regardless of intentions, criticizing the health behavior of a group of people during a conversation about negative treatment of that group comes off as a defense of the negative treatment. I always get the disturbing sense from these conversations that some people seem to see distaste for fat people as some kind of totally natural and understandable urge that we should try to fight, out of pity, but if we don’t succeed, it’s no big deal. It’s not natural or understandable, though, and pity doesn’t make up for it, and it is a big deal– it’s prejudice, no matter how much one dresses it up in the language of the concerned citizen. And we need to be able to have conversations about that prejudice without those conversations being derailed into “obesity epidemic” scare-tactics or condescending “reminders” about health risks.
Unfortunately, I’ve never seen it happen yet.
This comment was written by Keri.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 8:41 am
Brian was compared to pharmacists who refuse to dispense birth control because in both cases, it’s none of their damn business. They don’t really have a moral stake in the interaction. There are health risks associated with sexual activity and with birth control pills. They’re specious arguments not only because there are numerous public health arguments to be made in favor of reproductive choice, but because those health risks are for the woman to analyze.
Health is also a red herring given that other unhealthy behaviors don’t result in discrimination. No one gets huffy when they find out that I drink six cups of coffee every day, or that my skinny coworker eats breakfast, lunch, and dinner out of a vending machine, even though neither habit is at all healthy. Smoking is absolutely horrible for you, but I don’t see too many people verbally abusing smokers on the street, or treating smokers as sexless, sloppy, incompetent, stupid, ugly, low-class freaks.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 8:57 am
Keri, I understand why you think that. Here is how I would respond:
First, it’s never anybody’s business to discuss another person’s weight in any social or business context unless it happens to be a subject of that person’s inquiry — for instance, to his or her fitness trainer or physician.
Second, I believe that focus on other people’s weight fits squarely within the clear tendency at all levels and in many areas of society for people to believe that being a moralizing busybody is not only justified but a civic duty. I hate this with something that goes beyond passion whether it’s officious pharmacists, anti-smoking zealots, the anti-fat brigade, or anyone else. If you really believe in a right to privacy that means you ought to be in favor of protecting the privacy of all people whether you dislike or disagree with them, or would do anything in your power not to be like them yourself.
However, if someone says to me “There’s nothing a person can do to control their weight” I do not believe that if I respond “I don’t think that’s true” I should be accused of attacking the obese. Likewise, if someone says “there’s nothing wrong with being fat” using the word “wrong” in its broadest, most overarching way, I don’t believe a response of “fat can be unhealthy” should always be a sign of anti-fat bias. But no, emphatically, there is nothing immoral about being overweight.
I don’t mean to sound defensive, but there are very few people who claim thinness as a matter of birthright, and many people are somewhat to very paranoid about weight in their own lives. Half my family is overweight — I’ve seen the healthy and the unhealthy (and the unhealthy aspects often appear only over time), and I have a disease that would definitely get worse if I gained weight. So I believe it is unfair to classify many of us commenters as being fat or thin as if we have no idea how the “other half” lives — like you could as male or female or gay or straight.
I am with Kim on this one — the real problem is with the laser focus on weight, which is clearly (or often is clearly) a focus on the most superficial, appearance related issues of weight. The focus should be on health, and if it is, weight often (not always) becomes a non-issue, because in my experience exercising a lot and having muscles go a long way towards boosting one’s self-image regarding appearance, give more energy, produce natural endorphins, give a sense of control over your life and on and on and on.
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 9:10 am
As a fat man trapped in a skinny body screaming to get out, i WISH i was fat - despite society’s pressures to be thin. Because i’m a man, fatness isn’t a big issue for us, BUT if i was fat, i would hire a lawyer and sue, sue, sue, any sales clerk that looked sideways at me! I have no problem using the law to aquire justice. Are fat people the “new nigger”?? Let’s hope in the 21 century we’ve evolved past that type of discrimination.
nice blog! Keep it real!
peace;
This comment was written by bodhi.bodhi
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April 15th, 2005 at 10:50 am
Good point. It’s not as though the sugar/butter content of fudge is a state secret.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 10:51 am
I’m interested in something piny said: Why is being unhealthy considered immoral? The implication of “Only some fat people are unhealthy” is that only some of them deserve discrimination and harassment and contempt (along with some skinny people, too). But why is it OK to act disgusted by someone who buys a pound of chocolate or orders the loaded cheese fries? Who cares?
It just seems like another way of telling someone what you think she should be doing with her life, just another level of “should”s in the pursuit of perfection. And I’m all in favor of the pursuit of perfection, but not if it means creating a parallel between “unhealthy” and “bad person”–especially since the same parallel doesn’t exist with words and phrases like “thoughtless” and “apathetic.”
This comment was written by Hestia.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 10:52 am
And yeah, what bean said.
This comment was written by Hestia.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 11:07 am
I have never had anyone respond with disgust when I tell them that I had an eating disorder, even though obesity is described in the same compulsive and pathological terms. I have occasionally encountered envy and admiration. No one has ever indicated that they thought I simply needed to learn to control my disordered habits. Nor have I ever encountered disgust in response to compulsive or dangerous exercise routines, starvation diets, unbalanced diets, serial dieters, diet pills, or otherwise unhealthy diets that will keep you thin (like drinking coffee or diet coke constantly, or smoking).
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 11:17 am
bean, is it racist if someone responded to your hypothetical by addressing public health aspects of how blacks are clearly at a much higher risk of certain types of diseases (kidney disease in particular)? How do you address issues without being able to raise them? My main concern is not that health always be discussed in tandem with being overweight anymore than it is in tandem with race, because it is sometimes misleading and symptomatic of underlying malice, but that people be able to address public health issues without feeling like such a discussion is per se indicative of discriminatory intent. But I do agree that the ferocity with which these issues are discussed specifically as they relate to weight really disserves the discussion. Skinny people like my mother-in-law can have clogged arteries and diabetes, while overweight people like my mother and her siblings can be the picture of glowing health.
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 11:37 am
The thing is, it’s not about health. If a 300lb person goes on intense dietary and exercise regimen (one that won’t harm his/her health, like starving oneself or having tapeworms inserted) then after say 6 months they lose 30lb, which is 10% of body mass, and really a lot, they still weigh 270lb and receive just as much contempt. So given this, if your goal is to lose weight in order to avoid society’s scorn, why even bother?
This comment was written by Raznor.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 12:06 pm
The scorn isn’t about health. I agree with that. I don’t mean to suggest otherwise. It’s just that the reverse is not always true: not all discussion about health is intended as scorn. ( Some of it clearly is.) I just hate to paint with too broad of a brush. And you should lose 30 pounds, if you want, for your own health, the health of your loved ones, etc. I mean, should women forego education and other opportunities because there are so many people who will nonetheless judge them mostly on the basis of their appearance no matter what?
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 12:13 pm
The reason health always gets dragged into these discussions is that its the supposed justification for the discrimination. Its what everybody always falls back on. Yes, the discrimination is wrong, irregardless, but it seems unless the justification gets challeneged, nothing will ever happen. This kind of confusing the point is especially common when discussing fat issues. Look how “healthy eating” got dragged into this too. Inevitably, someone will declare how awful it is that our society is eating to much and the result is all these awful fat people. The point gets made that there is no proof that fat people eat more than thin people, and suddenly the declaration is revised to simply complaining about how much everyone is eating and surely we can all agree on that. Maybe there is a point there, but the way it gets married to fat prejudice so frequently, I can hardly trust it when it gets magically divorced in a second. Healthy eating is a very good thing, but its very dangerous to unite it to a disgust of fat people because it basically weakens a good thing by associating it with a bad thing just because you figure they must be connected.
Another puzzling sight along what Raznor brings up is the idea of a small weight loss. One point that fat bashers inevitably make is that only a small amount of weight loss is beneficial to one’s health. Now, I know the study they are all refering to and it doesn’t really show that at all but lets put aside this point for a moment. 10% is indeed the magic number that often gets quoted. But clearly, the difference between a woman of 300 and a woman of 270lbs is negligable in the eyes of most Americans. The 270lb woman will still be subject to discrimination, scorn, and belittling treatment from medical professionals. And how are you to tell that the 300lb woman wasn’t simply a 335 lbs woman who lost 10% of her weight? If that’s really the massive improvement its made out to be, what exactly is the justification for the hectoring treatment of fat people in the first place? If they improve their health significiantly while still being very fat, how do you justify the hate of fat?
What those studies have actually shown is the degree to which lifestyle factors can affect weight. The answer being not all that much. Studies took people with poor eating habits and sedentary lifestyles and encouraged better eating habits and more activity. The result was a small change in weight on average. The occassional person lost a lot, many didn’t lose any at all. Everyone, however, should significant improvements in health even those most participants remained very significantly fat.
What this tells us is not that losing a little weight will help. The weight loss was happenstance to other positive changes and not very significant at all. Health is what is important, and weight is a very bad indicator of a health and an even worse scapegoat when made out to be an independant health risk.
This comment was written by Brian.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 12:35 pm
Brian, I really don’t understand why you are so upset with my position aside from that it seems you aren’t listening to what I am saying. Fat does not equal unhealthy. I have never said it does, I would not try to prove that nor would I support such an argument. My anecdotal story was not to support an argument. You accused me of trying to understand YOUR problem, my story was merely intended to show that it was MY problem too, and in a very personal manner.
If you want to see evidence of what I have written just go to the CDC website and check their stats on obesity. To see info on diabetes and causes/correlations and the like at CDC follow this link. I’m sure now someone is going to say they have debunked the CDC or that it is all a political game. I will not post a list of journal articles because I already know that most people cannot access them without institutional access. If you are interested in learning more about genetic links to obesity I would urge you to read some of the literature on leptins and the endogenous cannabinoid system and how they might be related to feeding behavior and perhaps even obesity. I really don’t think you care about this (learning more about genetic predisposition to obesity) anyway because you are already convinced that it is not a problem.
We live in a society that is increasing interconnected. Public health is a big issue and I, for one, believe that public health issues are going to have more and more impact on the viability of society over the coming decades. To start with, we are moving closer and closer to having a population that is mostly retired and will be facing serious health issues due to geriatric diseases. The NIH and CDC are racing against the clock on these issues knowing full well that something must be done to improve our ability to treat these diseases or our health professionals will be unable to keep up. The obesity issue makes matters worse. The CDC has consistently shown that rates of obesity are increasing among nearly every demographic. Rates of morbid obesity are increasing at an even faster rate. In conjunction with these increases, we have also seen large increases in related diseases such as type II diabetes. I don’t know if they are causally linked in every case, but some of them are, and they are preventable. Don’t take that to mean that I think it is the fault of the person. Quite the opposite. I am convinced that there is a genetic predisposition and our societal tendencies has just happened to allow for it to come out more often than we have ever seen.
So what would I do. First and foremost, I would reinstate every school program around that has been cut that involves physical activity. I would take sodas out of schools and artificially sweetened fruit juice too. I would give cities serious incentives to build bike paths (like they have done in Oregon) and give people some REAL incentives to drive as little as they have to to get to work. I would make gym memberships tax deductable (they might be already) as well as equipment purchases for the home. I would increase NIH funding for genetic studies on obesity and novel pharmacological approaches. We’ve tried and retried the same thing for 30 years, we know it doesn’t work already. I would get the CDC to start collecting more data on prevalence in school children and look harder at the early signs of type II diabetes in school kids. I would alo empower the FDA to start doing what they do best and start policing the theives stealing from people who honestly want to lose weight with their sack of lies diets and do-nothing pills.
In other words the problem is not with any individual, the problem is with society and it is on so many different levels that I don’t think I can write all of it within a reasonable amount of time (my opinion of it at least). Society has a crazy view of what the “ideal” body type should be, its nuts, and everyone knows it, so it should be dropped (and if you’re sick of it don’t change the channel, turn the damn thing off!!!!!). Discrimination is ugly, in all forms, and never excusable, but you have to be able to talk about real issues without being accused of being discriminatory. If we don’t, as a society, face this issue with honesty and candor now, in 20 years we are going to be in big trouble. The US and Europe together are already facing down the barrell of an aging population that is going to need to be supported by a shrinking working force. We cannot afford for that work force to be the most unhealthy and medically expensive that we have seen in generations.
This comment was written by Ted.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 1:02 pm
One of the aspects of living in a society or community is that we attempt to set collective standards. So, for example, we might ask–and attempt to get scientific data on–what activities or habits tend toward health, broadly construed, and what activities or habits tend toward unhealthiness. We could probably even make a list of measurements we can use to assess healthiness–BMI might be one, but it could easily be trumped by cholesterol, blood pressure, kidney function, whatever, or we might even decide that BMI isn’t a very good measure of healthiness. Nevertheless, if we believe that it is in our collective AND individual interests to promote health, this is a useful exercise. That’s what happened with smoking: scientists did studies, discovered that smoking is unhealthy in a whole bunch of ways, and have made that data available. Smokers typically know what risks they’re taking with their behavior. Some people have also developed effective interventions for people who would like to change their behavior and quit smoking. Being an ex-smoker myself, and having a good friend who is a professional smoking cessation specialist, I often serve as a guest speaker for her groups. I guarantee that I do not go in and hector people, even people who are having difficulty quitting.
W/r/t other aspects of health, I don’t think it’s problematic to say that regular exercise is associated with reduced blood pressure (if it is), or that obesity is associated with Type II diabetes in such a way that even moderate weight loss reduces the problems associated with Type II diabetes (if that’s true), or that whole grains and fruits and vegetables are healthier food choices than Taco Bell or similarly processed/fried foods. If we don’t know what’s healthier or less healthy, it’s more difficult to make good choices–information is useful.
What is unacceptable is looking at someone and making assumptions about his health or her health-related habits based on his/her size, no matter whether the size is large or small. That is, it’s the question of what kinds of interventions are acceptable/appropriate. It is not inappropriate or unacceptable to investigate or provide information about health-related behaviors; it is inappropriate and unacceptable to look at people and (a) make assumptions about their behaviors and (b) treat them on the basis of your assumptions about their behaviors.
This comment was written by Emma Goldman.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 1:12 pm
Barbara, I’m not saying you can never have the conversation. I’m just wondering why people consistently feel the need to have that conversation every single time anyone brings up any issue unrelated to health that fat people may have to deal with. It just seems like there are better places and times to talk about public health than in the middle of a post about discrimination against the overweight– again, even if it’s not meant as a defense of the discrimination, it serves as an effective distraction from it, so that people never really face up to the significance of that discrimination and the prejudices they may very well have themselves.
Fat suits may be dehumanizing to fat people, but I think it’s even more dehumanizing that we often consider it more important to discuss generalized issues of “public health” and statistics than to think about the real, individual, often (emotionally and mentally) painful experiences of those who happen to be overweight. Are the implications of studies like the one mentioned in the original post so unimportant that the topic must immediately be diverted to yet another round of hand-wringing about the “fat epidemic”? Don’t people get enough opportunities to discuss how terrible and awful and unhealthy fat is elsewhere?
This comment was written by Keri.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 2:02 pm
Point taken. I can see why it is frustrating for people to bring up health when the issue at hand is poor and unfair treatment. But isn’t it also invalid to equate people with racists or say that they are being offensive if they do bring up the health issue? Do I have to keep my thoughts about smoking being unhealthy to myself in a supposedly open forum about smoking because a smoker might take it personally?
This comment was written by Elena.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 2:29 pm
Smokers don’t face discrimination or heavy-duty social abuse for being smokers, so I doubt you’ve been in many discussions about anti-smoker bigotry. Digressions into health concerns, however well-intentioned or neutral the speaker, are not rhetorically neutral when they divert attention from discrimination that has historically been covered up by fake concern over health. Moreover, bigotry itself is a health problem for fat people. A disgusting body is not a protected body.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 2:47 pm
I actually didn’t make any points specifically about health but felt like some of the responses to those who did were somewhat unfair. Keri and Piny, I do get your points. It’s important to confront unfair treatment, and weight is not a protected category so overweight people have no way to protect themselves from the most damaging forms of discrimination (educational, vocational).
I would say that the prevalence of obesity, and discrimination against the overweight, are just two more reasons to have a truly national health system.
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 2:48 pm
Smokers don’t face discrimination? They can now either smoke on the street or in their homes and that is about it. That’s not discrimination? Its also much harder for them to get health insurance and its way more expensive. How about life insurance.
What on earth does this mean:
This comment was written by Ted.Report this comment to the moderators